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Gardens alpine garden Wave Hill 12

T.H. Everett Alpine House & Troughs

A Refuge for High Mountain Plants

Diminutive plants from mountainous regions flourish in the airy Alpine House. Other rock garden plants grow in the handmade troughs on the terrace and even on the adjacent Alpine Wall.

Named for Founding Director of Horticulture Marco Polo Stufano's mentor, the preeminent horticulturist T. H. Everett, this specially designed house, and adjacent troughs, are home to plants that are highly adapted to the rigorous conditions found above tree line.

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In 1965, on a visit to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Stufano understood that an outside terrace for trough plantings could provide a second environment for growing alpines.

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The experience is like a museum visit. You stand before the crystal case, admiring the small, exquisite objects carefully arranged inside. But this is no trip to a gallery in Manhattan; it's a foray to the Bronx to visit Wave Hill's T. H. Everett Alpine House.
Tom Christopher Garden writer and author of Nature into Art: The Gardens of Wave Hill, 2019
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A window onto the world of alpines

Diminutive plants from mountainous regions flourish in the Alpine House, providing a feast for the senses in every season.

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The Alpine Terrace

Outdoors and adjacent to the house, the terrace features rectangular troughs with rough walls. These troughs are handmade onsite from hypertufa, a concrete mix. The troughs are home to rock garden plants and dwarf evergreens. Wave Hill occasionally offers popular workshops on making hypertufa troughs and planting them.

More on the Alpine House & Troughs

Draba close up

Whitlow grass species

Despite the misleading common name, whitlow grass is not a grass but, in fact, a member of the mustard and cabbage family (Brassicaceae).

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Viola close up

Parma violet cultivar

A visit to the Alpine House on a sunny winter day will be rewarded by a waft of delicious perfume, its source this white, double-flowered cultivar of Parma violet.

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Early March at the Alpine House and Terrace

In the mountains, spring arrives late, plants emerging from dormancy as soon as the snows start to melt and beginning to flower shortly after. March is a good time to catch many of our alpine plants in bloom.

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