Read on below for more of the interview with Joseph Tychonievich.
It is a fun group and I love going to the meetings, though I am often on the road on weekends when they are meeting. Rock gardeners typically are people who love all plants. I get really tired of the hosta people who only want to grow hostas, or people who only care about tomatoes, but rock gardeners I feel love everything, and they feel rock gardening is the place where they can grow the most little stuff and cool stuff in a small area.
Q. And I tease about NARGS, because really the keenest and most acclaimed gardeners I know are members for life, and have been going to meetings forever. There are chapters all over the place, and it?s not like cute, fun, outdoor-decorating topics?it?s real plantsmanship, and that?s great.
The NARGS website says: ?Gardens in which rocks and plants appropriate to them are the chief landscape elements are called rock gardens.? I?d say a rock garden, ?is a place (with rocks of course) where obsessed people try to grow very difficult plants.? [Laughter.] How does Joseph define ?rock garden??
A. I kept asking myself that when I was trying to put this book together. To me a rock garden is a style of gardening inspired by what we see on mountaintops. On mountaintops you get these alpine plants and the plants get shrunk down very small, and have these beautiful compact forms, and you have the stones. And the plants often have these huge flowers because pollinators are scarce up there are you need a big show to attract pollinators.
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