"Jonno" wrote in message
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A rock garden, also known as a rockery or an alpine garden, is a type of
garden that features extensive use of rocks or stones, along with plants
native to rocky or alpine environments.

I think I'd quibble somewhat with Mr Wikipedia's defintion. Alpine plants
were certainly a part of the original rock gardens and very big in Europe
and IIRC, the US, but for Oz, they haven't really been a feature in recent
years except in specialist type gardens. The alpine plants were all the go
when people had rock gardens which went into specifics such as moraine,
scree, and peat landscapes etc. I haven't seen anything along those lines
in Oz suggesting such plantings for years now. It tends to be more along
the lines of Japanese type influences and putting natives into rock gardens
in more recent years.