Alpine plants are some of the toughest plants around. Their home is at times can be some of the toughest places in the world. This makes them ideal for planting in containers, if like me, you are awful at forgetting to water them!
You could just plant them into a normal pot, making sure they have a good free draining soil or you can have a little bit of fun with them and use well almost anything you would like. Bits of old paving, bricks, old fossils, bits of clay pipe or indeed broken clay pots, one of the best forms of recycling
Indeed the only limit is you imagination!
One of the downsides of the storms this winter, was the strong winds. They never seemed to end did they. This did result in a broken large pot. I left it for a while until I had a little time to play. Ironically it’s been this damned virus that’s made me look at this pot once more.

Now I have the pot, it’s what to fill it with? . I have a few alpines within my hoard of plants I have. Alpines suit this style of planting perfectly. They are designed to survive in harsh conditions and will thrive in this type of planting. If you have a few semperivens that you, they are ideal for this and so easy to propagate. See my blog about do it https://thomasdstone.blog/2017/09/14/propagating-sempervivens/

Next is the compost, I like to use a loan based compost for alpines. My favourite is John Innes no3 and this was mixed with equal parts of gravel to form my planting medium









Great idea thank you Thomas! Too bad we don’t have access to nurseries here and online shopping is limited …
That is pretty creative. Someone tried to replace a missing portion of a pot with wire mesh, thinking that small succulents could be plugged into it. (It is right outside now.) It did not work too well, although it could have. However, I think I would have just glued the missing portion back into place, and, if I wanted succulents over the edge, planted something that cascades. Your technique is more for displaying the particular plants, rather than displaying a particular style of container gardening.