WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-The Rock Garden at the Fells

At the Rock Garden at The Fells on the shores of Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire, and you really just have to take a seat and look around because there are so many interesting things growing in between these nooks and crannies.

This is the original rock garden planted by Clarence Hayes, who was the son of John Hayes who used to be the statesman at the turn of the century. Over a hundred years ago, they started and a lot of these plants are either ones that were originally here or they restored and brought them back. 

This rock garden is beautiful because it's a mixture of lot of different plant textures and colors. There are heathers blooming into the fall. We have the Lobelia cardinalis, which has a big, spiky red flower, and then there is the great blue lobelia, which has smaller blue flowers. There sweet little baby hostas, too.

One of the nice things about rock gardens is it doesn't have lot of soil, so you're not going to get plants growing too big and taking over because the plants have to stay small. They don't have enough nutrients to support large growth, so you get a lot of creepy crawly plants that do their best here. Especially in amongst the rocks, you have little hens and chicks, dianthes, and some little evergreens, and different kinds of mosses that are growing. So it's nice to have a rock garden with plants that cascades and flows.

If you are starting a rock garden, you are going to have to stay on top of it for a number of years because other things will start to move in like weeds. But, if you can get it established, many times these plants will really cover the soil and area. They will be growing in an
environment more conducive to their growth than the weeds so they'll kind of take over. Beautiful, and in the meantime, come visit a garden like this.

By Charlie Nardozzi