If you have ever grown frustrated watching alpines struggle during the muggy summer nights or the slushy thaws of midwinter, consider adding tufa rock to your arsenal of tools to make these lovely plants happy. We are excited to be able to offer handsome chunks of tufa for sale this spring. Our shipment actually arrived at the beginning of summer last year, and the few pieces that made it down to the sales area were enthusiastically received.

What is tufa? Why all the excitement? Let's tackle the excitement part first. Just on a visual level this stone is stunningly different and attractive. For several years, we have had a series of pieces of it in the very long trough on our succulent table near the kiosk, and gardeners of every dedication and stripe have coveted them. Secondly, plants love to grow near it, in it, on it and under it. A case in point: some seven or eight years ago, at a workshop, I acquired a Campanula raineri and planted it directly into a hole drilled into tufa. I had never had any luck keeping this choice campanula before. Last year, as I was walking by, I noticed a tuffet of green on the other side of the tufa. Dropping down closer for a look and suspecting a blown-in weed seedling, I was astonished to find that it was a new clump of C. raineri. This difficult-to-keep plant had traveled via stolons through the rock to the other side. If that isn't a definition of success, I don't know what is. So what is this stuff?

I am not a geologist, but I will do my best to explain the salient facts that it might help a gardener to know. Tufa is a kind of limestone usually formed in water with a high degree of suspended solids, mostly minerals, especially calcium carbonate. Iron oxide (rust) can give it a yellow or red coloration, and fossils are often found in it. Tufa resembles certain corals from the tropics but it is not nearly so hard and is often very, very porous. I have heard it said that, in the water where tufa forms, the calcium accumulates like rock candy as the minerals precipitate out. But instead of forming on string or a convenient lollipop stick, the crystals form around bits of debris and shreds of moss. Eventually, the organic materials degrade away and what is left is limestone rock, shaped and perforated through and through with holes like a sponge. Oddly, sometimes plants not particularly fond of an alkaline reaction will do well in this substrate, and, of course, lime lovers thrive. Plants to avoid would be severely calcifuge subjects or those with a deep thick taproot, although there is no reason not to grow tap rooted plants near or beneath tufa. The plants that take the best advantage of this medium are those with a fibrous or adventitious root system. There is, of course, a lot of room for experimentation; plants are nothing if not surprising and adaptable.

Undoubtedly, the simplest way to use tufa is as a stone in your trough or garden landscape. I'd recommend starting out in the smaller theater of the trough at first. Building an entire tufa garden or tufa wall is a huge undertaking. Because there is usually no stratification in this stone, it can be placed without worrying about lining up the best rock "face" or keeping a crevice looking similar or "true" to nature. Common sense tells us to place the heaviest, biggest end of the tufa downwards, and, for the happiness of the plant roots, to bury a portion of it below soil level. Twenty or thirty percent of the whole is about right. Tufa will "wick" moisture up if it is seated in soil or sand that is moistened.

You can start this trough plant-up like any other. Have your trough filled with soil, select your plants, and then begin arranging interesting shaped chunks of tufa until it pleases you. If there is to be a shrub or other "anchor" plant of any kind, move that around at the same time as the tufa. Both elements have a major effect on the final look. Try not to place the pieces equidistant apart. Rather, clump or layer them with small plants between them. Strive for an asymmetrical composition. Positioning your alpines so that their roots come in contact with the tufa is useful to get them off to a good start. Visually, you are already off to a terrific start; the picturesque tufa you have arranged will please you from the very beginning.

(To be continued. Watch for Parts Two and Three coming up later this year.)

* pronounced "toofa"

By Mimi Dekker

Reports of the first snowfall each year leave me a bit rattled. Not only is snow the first true sign of winter, but it literally throws a wet blanket on my outdoor activities. However, once that initial assault is over and the roads cleared, I find the winter landscape that emerges truly beautiful. And every new year I resolve to add more of its beauty and intrigue to my own gardens.

Connecticut's natural landscape consists primarily of deciduous tree species such as oak, maple, and birch, among others. Our forests, as do many of our parks and home gardens, display well-developed layers of woody plants, flowers and ferns. With deciduous trees leafless for nearly half the year, the winter sun, albeit lower, finally reaches the forest floor, illuminating the land, and revealing a fantastic display of native plant life and geology. We've all seen the fantastic displays of our state flower, Kalmia latifolia in bloom in May, but in winter, you can see stands of Mountain Laurel across the state that stretch for miles.

A dusting of snow works like nature's confectioners' sugar. A light snow cover obscures the obvious backdrop of leaf litter, and objects, both distant and near, along the boundaries of the landscape, are revealed in a high-contrast, nearly black and white scene where even the most subtle land forms, contours and swales, ledges, stone walls, fence lines, evergreens, and tree silhouettes, appear out of nowhere. Unless we are lucky enough to be a passenger, details of the landscape are often missed while we drive during daylight hours. With shorter days, and cold, windy weather bearing down, most of us spend our time indoors and not out and about in the woods, or even in our own gardens.

After the next snow storm has come and gone, take a drive or a walk in the woods. Look around and take notice of what you like about the winter landscape. Then, resolve to add some winter interest to your landscape this spring.
 

Trees and shrubs we like for winter interest:

·      Stewartia pseudocamellia (bark)

·      Acer griseum (bark)

·      Ilex opaca (evergreen and red berries)

·      Pieris 'Dorothy Wyckoff' (evergreen, wine-red winter foliage)

·      Ilex verticillata (bright red berries)

·      Crataegus viridis 'Winter King' (orange-red berries)

·      Chimonanthus praecox (creamy yellow, winter blooms)

·      Viburnum xbodnantense 'Dawn' (winter blooms)

·      Cornus alba (red twigs)

·      Corylus avellana 'Contorta' (twisted, contorted branches)

·      Malus 'Indian Magic' (great branching structure)