Please tell me about alpine gardens!

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I am making a miniature magical garden for my DS as a surprise & I am using alpines as I have always wanted to garden with them. But I have never done alpine gardening before! Any top tips or essentials I should know about? Such as best containers, anything really!

Lovely idea!
I know its important to have good drainage (lots of grit I think). WOudl have thought stone or terracotta woudl be best container wise rather than plastic.
WHy not borrow a book from the library or get a second hand one from Amazon?

thank you! I got some little plastic trays for it but on looking at them now they are way too small so will buy something more suitable tomorrow (hopefully!) at a garden centre. I cant decide whether or not to have it indoors or outdoors. I was at the library yesterday I wish I had thought of looking for a book!

I got a tiny little terracotta tray thingy for 25p to set into the earth to make a little pond within the garden. And I am getting some sort of creature for it tomorrow though I havent decided what. Might be a dinosaur. I am not sure yet! It has to seem magical.

You could keep it indoors for now and move it outside once its warm.

You can get some really unusual sedum plants with stange leaves/flowers which woudl look good with the little pond.

I still havent totally settled where it will be put yet! But I got my plants. 9 of them! And some pretty silvery black rock chip things for the top and some blue glass crystal looking things as decoration. And I broke my terracotta dish for the pond which turned out to be a blessing as I got instead a set of 6 old gold bowls for £5.00 - 5 smaller bowls & 1 big serving bowl. I am using one of the smaller bowls as the new pond, its deeper and as its gold & the glass is made with swirlies in it it will look much more magical.

And last but not least I am bidding on tiny brass buddha & 2 sleeping dragons to sit in the garden! I dont want him to see it til its all done & put together so I am holding off planting it up til the statues arrive. I bought a big hexagonal wooden planter for it but then remembered I have a big german tub out in the garden so I am trying to decide which style suits the garden better. The decoration is mostly shiny stuff so I am thinking perhaps the silver coloured tub thing? But the wooden one is nice too. Not sure! I cant wait though! DS will love it! Knowing him he will be so excited he wont be able to look at it for a while!