Baldassare Mineo opens his garden on Cummings Lane in Medford to the public every Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon. Visitors can stroll the grounds and buy plants that Mineo propagates from seeds and divisions.

“[F]rom that old-school rocks-and-alpines version, rock gardening has been evolving. Traditional rock gardening has moved out to different parts of the world, taking on different forms as gardeners explore and adapt to their local conditions and tastes.”

— Joseph Tychonievich, “Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style,” 2016

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve focused on author Joseph Tychonievich’s recommendations for building rock gardens and choosing plants for rock gardens, whether they’re classic alpines, drought-tolerant Oregon natives, non-native xeriscape plants, or low-growing, woodland plants for shady areas. For the next two weeks, I’ll showcase two of our local rock gardens, the second of which is profiled in Tychonievich’s book.

When he visited Medford several years ago, Tychonievich, who’s editor of the North American Rock Garden Society’s publication, “Rock Garden Quarterly,” was amazed at the change in climate as he drove south from Portland. In fact, he said our weather in the Rogue Valley “makes for golden rock gardening conditions.”

“When you don’t have to worry about getting too much water from excess rain, and you can add water as you need it, you can fine-tune conditions to make just about anything happy,” Tychonievich said.

It should be no surprise, then, that Medford has a 60-year-long history of rock gardening enthusiasm. Back in 1965, postal workers Lawrence Crocker and Boyd Kline opened the Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery, sparking a passion for the beautiful combination of rocks and plants among many local gardeners. So many, in fact, that renowned Czech landscape designer and gardener Josef Halda made several trips to the U.S. to design and build rock gardens right here in the Rogue Valley.

One of the rock gardens Halda built was on Baldassare Mineo’s property on Cummings Lane in Medford. When Crocker and Kline retired in 1978, Mineo and his partner Jerry Colley bought the business and moved all of the plants — more than 500 different species — to their home on a 4-acre parcel at the edge of town. They expanded the enterprise to about 4,000 plants within a few years and ran the thriving mail order nursery together until Mineo bought Colley’s share of the business in 1990 and managed it on his own until 2005.

In the 1990s, Mineo wanted to build a demonstration rock garden that would showcase some of the plants he propagated and sold, so he hired Halda to carry out the project. Halda and his crew hauled in 100 tons of granite boulders from the Applegate Valley. They originally planted the rock garden with conifers, and Mineo filled in the space with a variety of alpine plants.

Over the years, the rock garden has evolved into a true botanical oasis, which Mineo calls Italio Garden and Nursery, located at 2825 Cummings Ln, Medford. Fortunately for us, he opens the garden to the public from 9 a.m. to noon every Saturday when he sells many of the plants that visitors drool over as they stroll through the 2-acre grounds. (Mineo sold a portion of his land in 2022.)

Most of the plants in Mineo’s garden and nursery aren’t alpines but plants that would be at home in practically any type of garden. However, he has encyclopedic knowledge of rock garden plants, having authored “Rock Garden Plants: A Color Encyclopedia” in 1999. The book features about 1,500 plants that were photographed by him and Austrian horticulturalist Fritz Kummert.

One of Mineo’s favorite rock garden plants is Daphne x medfordensis ‘Lawrence Crocker.’ A hybrid of D. arbuscula and D. collina that originated in Crocker’s garden, this dwarf-sized evergreen produces fragrant, pink flowers in spring. Mineo said another favorite alpine plant is the vivid blue gentian, a perennial that grows only a few inches tall. Most gentians bloom in the spring but fall-flowering species are also available.

In addition, Mineo recommends some of our Oregon natives for rock gardens, including Oregon sunshine (Eriophyllum lanatum), Siskiyou lewisia (L. cotyledon) and sulfur-flower buckwheat (Eriogonum umbellatum).

When I asked him about challenges that local rock gardeners face, Mineo told me getting plants through our increasingly hot summers can be a bit tricky. Although alpine plants are drought-tolerant once established, they have evolved to thrive in mountainous regions with intense direct sunlight, but not in excessive heat. That’s because the air is thin at high altitudes and doesn’t retain heat well, which is why temperatures can range drastically from day to night.

Irrigating rock gardens during the summer is needed in the Rogue Valley and should be done in the morning to prevent root or crown rot. Mineo said the key to a thriving rock garden is to start with a soil base that’s rich in organic matter and then add a thick layer of mixed sand, compost and gravel on top that drains water well.

“Be careful that it doesn’t drain too fast, though,” Mineo cautioned; otherwise, moisture will evaporate in the summer heat before the plants have a chance to cool off. Gardeners can add a bit of topsoil if they find they need more water retention.

Other sound advice Mineo offers to local would-be rock gardeners is to join the Siskiyou Chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society. The group meets monthly from September through May, usually at Lidgate Hall behind the United Congregational Church of Christ, 1801 E. Jackson Street in Medford.

April’s speaker is NARGS president Panayoti Kelaidis, who will talk about rock garden plants that are suitable to grow in our area at 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 21. For more information about the presentation or NARGS, contact Mineo at 541-840-0929.