Hi John, I did a search for Rock Garden books at my local library and found several! Lots of ideas and plans in print, and tremendous amounts of information on cultivation. After deciding the best two locations for what I wanted, I had to figure out where to acquire the best rocks to work into my slope. Luckily a lot is sloooowwwwly being excavated in town and all sorts of wonderful limestone is cropping up and can be taken away at no cost but sweat equity. From there I found what candidate plants were available for purchase locally in pots or seed, and for free from the woods on our property. While doing all this research I was also acquiring the ingredients for the 'dirt' I would be using (and letting it percolate) and got info for making hypertufa troughs in case I wanted to add one or two into the design. :-) When the weather is too bad to work with plants, I can always work with rocks and soil or do more research on plants! And in th e process I looked around at a few local gardens and have discovered some wonderful rockeries that have been built in our area. There was never a gardener who could resist telling you how they have made their garden works! So my advice is check your library and if you need to purchase books see what an Amazon search can come up with in used books. Have fun! Mia in Indiana

I just got the newly released Rock Garden Design and Construction ISBN: 0-88192-583-7 book as a gift and it contains a chapter on soils and planting recommendations for troughs (only 10 pages though) written by Rex Murfitt. Two other good books on rock garden plants are: 1) Rock Garden Plants: A Color Encyclopedia by Baldassare Mineo ISBN: 0881924326 (lots of pictures) 2) Rock garden plants of North America : an anthology from the Bulletin of the North American Rock Garden Society / edited by Jane McGary. ISBN: 0881923435 (very few pictures but great plant descriptions with mention of which are suitable for troughs) Here is another book I came across but I don't have any experience with the book but the author wrote the 10 page chapter in the first book: -Creating And Planting Alpine Gardens: How To Build Small Rock Gardens And Work With Alpine Plants by Rex Murfitt Lastly, you may want to check out the North Am Rock Garden Society web site (NARGS). They have three books on troughs but I cannot recommend any of these personally. See if your library has these books before you invest in them to make sure they have what you want. Definitely check out interlibrary loan - I'm sure you'll be able to get them this way if your library doesn't have them. Here is a link that might be useful: NARGS Bookstore

I agree, in a store you pay about $1 / lb, can get to $ 100 easily, too much for me to spend. I often look for rocks on the side of a road while driving. I had luck driving through Vermont and found an area where there was a little rock slide at the side of the road. Filled up my trunk. The problem is also that I can not pick up and move in and out of a car trunk rocks weighing more than 40 lbs. 20 lbs is about a one-man rock to carry comfortably. For larger rocks you probably need a truck and a fork lift.

I hope you both are right and she was tired or confused. Believe me, to save a caliber midnight shubert I read everything available online on black knot too. However, when someone in the industry tells you they are now seeing infection in malus, you tend to believe them. I have to choose a replacement tree this year. I know that the spores are likely in the soil and whatever caused the infection is likely still upwind. Maybe a buckeye or ivory silk lilac. Have to reconsider how big I want it. Maybe even a nice evergreen. Will try posting photo when sun is out for photo taking.