Adding some alpine plants in the cactus garden

   Finally, after five years having only cacti and succulents in the small garden just off the front lawn, today I planted some alpine plants in sort of a rock garden.  I needed better drainage, so I went to a gravel pit and got a load of torpedo sand (a coarser sand).
   The rocks in the mounds with cacti and succulents nestled inside came from Marathon County in central Wisconsin from a farmer's rock pile.  They are all well-weathered, and most have lichens growing on them (a lichen is a combination of an alga and a fungi).
   I like very fine-textured plants with small, dainty leaves, so I went to Flower Factory, the largest perennial nursery in the state, about 60 miles west of here, to buy the plants.  I got Arenaria "Wallowa Mountains," Bolax glebaria 'nana,' Arenaria tetraquetra, Delosperma 'Reznicek,' Dianthus simulans, Silene acaulis 'Francis,' Draba incerta, Saxifraga 'Coer de There,' and Thymus serpyllum 'Album."  (If you come for a visit, there will be an ID test--just saying.)
   The steer's skull I found in Montana while pheasant hunting.  The two pieces of wood were a nice gift from Larry Jackel at the Denver Botanic Garden.  I asked him for an eight-foot Ponderosa Pine several hundred years old (I had my pickup truck along when I visited there in early April.)  He declined my request--and gave me the nice wood instead.  I think it adds a lot to the scheme.
   The six red rocks are Entrada sandstone that I picked up in Utah on the same trip west in April.  Utah is my favorite state, visiting there eight times.  However, in our humid conditions, these rocks will disintegrate eventually, as the moisture weakens the cement holding the sand grains together.