If you've ever wanted to put alpine plants in your garden, you've probably learned by now that they don't like being stuck in the ground, low down with the other plants. They need their own little box with the own special alpine soil — something called an alpine trough.

Why "trough?" Because they're fashioned after water troughs traditionally used in England and Scotland to water cattle and horses. They carved them out of native stone and soon learned they make great planters, especially for alpine plants.

You may have also noticed that these heavy, durable planters are not readily available, so most alpine gardeners do what Dale Sullivan does — they make their own.

Sullivan, owner of Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery in Talent, makes it look easy, mixing cement, peat moss, perlite (a natural silicate rock, pulverized) and water to a dough-like consistency then pouring it in a form, which can be made of wood. You can also use a pan, litter box, ice chest, kiddie pool or any such ready-made container for the form.

Sullivan's skills will be put to use in his lecture on trough-building at 3 p.m., Sunday, April 29, at the Master Gardener's Spring Fair at the Jackson County Exposition Park.

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"It's fun to make them. It's more fun to plant them. They provide elevated habitat for alpine plants that don't want to grow in the ground," says Sullivan. "You try to duplicate the alpine soil.

"Alpine plants consider it a perfect environment when they're elevated, away from the heat and humidity you have close to the ground, but still in full sunlight," says Sullivan.

Some alpine plants that love the security of troughs include flox, columbine, gentian, penstamen and — don't try pronouncing this without help — maihuena poeppiqii, which Sullivan displays in a foot-square trough that sits on a short pedestal, its surface roughed and antiqued by rubbing on powdered cement (with water) when it's all dried and done.

Don't let size limit you. Feel free to make huge alpine troughs, as Sullivan did, pouring the hypertufa (concrete-moss-perlite mixture) into a 3-by-4-foot wood form with four PVC pipe drains in it (it needs drainage, like alpine soil), then smoothing it around to an attractive shape that resembles the cattle troughs of yore.

When the structure is still wet, you can press objects into it — such as seashells or leaves — to make impressions. It takes a day or two to dry. Then it lasts indefinitely and can become a treasured heirloom.

Costs for such an enduring and practical art object are surprisingly minimal — $8 to $12 for a big bag of the cement and for one of perlite or peat moss, amounting to about 4 cubic feet. The moss and perlite help open up air spaces in the structure and make it lighter. You can add shredded fiberglass ($14 a bag) for strength and more sand for aggregate.

Alpine plant fanciers love the troughs and consider them a cachet as rock gardeners. But they caution newcomers against picking any alpine plants from the wild, as that damages fragile, high-elevation ecosystems. Buy them from nurseries or online.