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How an Alpine Gardener Came to Be
by Mary Jasch
Lawrence B. Thomas grows alpines on his New York City terrace in tall clay pots and seedling cups. These tiny plants with spectacular bloom cover the tables, benches and floor.
Thomas grew over half of the plants on his terrace from seed, including two 20-year-old Ponderosa pines, a seven-foot tall Arizona cypress, Dawn Redwood and Cornus kousa. Under the Dawn Redwood, bumble bees pollinate the dwarf Hosta sieboldii ‘Kabitan,' with wavy chartreuse leaves edged in dark green and its mature second generation offspring.
Although he normally grows 200 to 300 cups of new seedling varieties every year, this year he grew about 60. “I always have something coming,” he says. “I keep my seed cups for at least two to three years. Some plants don’t germinate for two or three years, particularly the rare ones. I’ve had rare forms of Androscace at the end of three years that popped up like water cress. I love the ones from the Himalayas. With growing alpines you find you love a lot of things.”
On tabletops, Pink Fameflower, Talinum calycina, and the diminutive sandgrass, Mibora minima, grow from seed. Yarrow from the Russian Caucuses and Western phlox bloom after five years next to Alpine astilbe, a true dwarf just a few inches high, and the star-shaped Phemeranthera that blooms in late afternoon. Clematis tibetana from the Himalayas blooms yellow in late fall. “It’s not showy but the seed pods are spectacular,” he says. The pink Potentilla nitida, native to limestone areas of European Alps and northen Apennines, is a special challenge. “Nobody can bloom it.” “My mother was a superb gardener. She created an English border on the harsh alkaline plains of Texas. She was basically a self-taught gardener. When I came to it as an adult, I learned by trial and error.”
Saxifraga species (rock crushers) cover a rock made of tufa in which Thomas drilled holes. It sits in a saucer with water and blooms in late winter with “soft ice-cream-colored-flowers.”
He began his terrace garden in 1966. In fact he took the apartment because of the terrace. It wasn’t until 1970 that he noticed nearby residents using their terraces for gardens. The main impetus for Thomas to grow the tiny plants was when he visited Kew Gardens in England and stumbled upon the alpine house and saw dozens of the genus Campanula on display. “It just blew my mind. I fell in love with it. I felt I had to learn these plants.” He joined the North American Rock Garden Society (NARGS), collected seed and specialized in rock gardening.
“I came to ceramics primarily because of a flower pot. I wanted a pot called a ‘Long Tom’ – a pot taller than wide. It’s ideal for alpines because it gives a long root run that alpines need,” he says. "I became a studio assistant teaching ceramics at Mary-Mount Manhattan College and then taught for 18 years. Long Toms are available in this country now. Americans have become more sophisticated."
Thomas had a long career as editor of entertainment magazines – Pageant, Motion Picture, TV Mirror and also as a freelance garden writer. He wrote a how-to chapter, Rock Gardening on a Balcony, in the book “Rock Garden Design and Construction,” recently published by Timber Press and NARGS.
He is a member of NARGS, the British Alpine Garden Society, Scottish Rock Garden Club, New Zealand Alpine Garden Society and British Columbia Rock Garden Society – each with an international seed program. NARGS members collect seed from all over the world, contributing to one of the most important seed collections used to reintroduce species not in cultivation for years. Their early winter catalog contains over 5,000 species and varieties. Members get seed by January and plant it immediately to take advantage of the freeze/thaw cycle. Some plants are warm weather germinators, so they’re planted indoors or saved until spring. The Manhattan Chapter of NARGS holds its annual fundraising plant sale on Sunday, September 19. Thomas donates seedlings to the chapter.
“The main reason rock gardeners grow their own plants for their gardens is because they are just not available in commercial markets,” he explains. “You have to have a lot of patience. It takes a long time to grow them. Sometimes it takes a long time to get them. It’s very gratifying to have something very difficult to grow and you find that you can grow it.”
Rock garden plants and alpine plants are sometimes used interchangeably. Alpines are plants that grow above the tree line in the mountains with a very short growth period in which they have to grow, bloom and set seed to perpetuate themselves. Most rock garden plants have adapted to growing in rock in a scree situation. Some of them can grow in pure rock with no organic matter or with just what drifts into a crevice – and their roots shoot down into the dirt.
In the highest alpine zones on Ecuador’s equator, there are plants that literally freeze every night and bake in the tropical sun every day. “They are impossible to tame here unless you have a refrigerated bed in a greenhouse. It’s part of the challenge of rock gardening because you are trying to grow them in an unnatural environment.” Many of the most popular plants come from the Andes. "Part of the difficulty in growing alpines is getting them past the seedling stage. Sometimes we keep them in cups three or four years. Part of the problem is we coddle them too much.”
Campanulas, Thomas’s passion, grow all over the world in the Northern hemisphere. They are both fibrous and tap-rooted. “When you choose your pot, you have to give a longer root run because plants are used to their roots reaching down,” he says. “Try to create that by putting in pieces of slate or stone.” These tough plants grow under the most adverse conditions in the world – high wind and increased radiation. Some adapt by having soft fuzzy foliage that captures dew or water but doesn’t allow the plant to get soggy. Many form buns – tight clumps that look like a single plant. They can cover themselves in flowers so you see no foliage. Some dianthus form buns.
Alpines require perfect drainage with quick, free-draining soil. Roots require a lot of oxygen. "Some alpines can grow in a sand bed. Many are under snow for three-quarters of the year, but it’s not the way we grow them at ground level. It’s easier for people with good snow cover to grow them. You just learn to do it a different way." Everything in his garden stays out all winter. Those that need to stay dry are put under a potting bench – like his choicest campanulas and dry land ferns.
Thomas plants bare root into a 50/50 mix of grit and soil. “My soil 30 years ago was the richest soil from the bottom of a pond in Connecticut. Since then, I’ve incorporated grit, leaf mold, compost. Terrace gardeners never throw soil away. I don’t fertilize the alpines because it makes them grow out of character.” To avoid bug problems, alpines need good air circulation. Thomas uses no pesticides because of his cat. He hand picks aphids and sometimes slugs and douses them in salt water. He lifts every pot and checks. He has lots of spiders to take care of the rest.
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