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What is Jans Alpines?
Jans Alpines is the personal alpine-plant website of Harry Jans, a Dutch grower and longtime rock-garden enthusiast based in Loenen, near Apeldoorn in the Netherlands. Its centerpiece is a large image gallery of alpine and rock-garden plants, reported on the site as more than 36,000 plant photographs with detailed information. The site also provides a search function for finding plants by country, species and similar criteria — useful if you want to see how a particular plant looks in habitat rather than only in cultivation.
It suits people who grow or study alpines: rock-garden hobbyists, alpine-house growers, plant photographers, and travelers planning mountain trips who want to know what flowers where. The habitat angle is the main draw, since Harry Jans describes hiking in mountains with his wife Hannie to see plants in the wild, and his site reflects that field-observation focus rather than a commercial nursery catalogue.
What you will and will not find:
- Plant imagery and identification: the gallery and search are the core, oriented toward species and country.
- Garden context: pages about his own garden, alpine house and frames show how he grows and propagates plants, which is useful for anyone planning a similar setup.
- Community background: he was a founding member of the Dutch Rock Garden Society (N.R.V.) and served as its president from 2000 to 2006, so the site carries a society-and-exchange ethos rather than a shopfront.
- No pricing signals: nothing on the page indicates plants or seeds for sale, so treat it as a reference and inspiration resource, not a place to order.
A practical next step: if you are trying to identify a plant you saw on a mountain walk, use the search by country and species to narrow the gallery, then compare the habitat shots with your own photos. If you mainly grow in pots or an alpine house, the garden and alpine-house sections are the better starting point for cultivation ideas.
How can I search the plant image gallery by country or species?
Use the gallery's built-in search, then narrow by country or species. On Jans Alpines, Harry Jans describes an image gallery of over 36,000 plant photos with a search engine for country and plant species, so the intended path is: go to the gallery, enter your term, and filter or select the country or species field rather than browsing all images manually.
H3 Practical search routine
- Open the image gallery from the site navigation.
- If you know the country, search that first, then add the species name.
- If you only know the plant, search the species and check the country shown with each image.
- Use the detailed information attached to images to confirm identification, habitat and location.
- Keep a note of the exact spelling used on the site, since country and species names may follow botanical or regional conventions.
H3 Example If you want to see how a saxifrage looks in the wild in Greece, search the species name together with Greece. If the results are too broad, search the country alone and scan the species labels; if too narrow, try the genus rather than the full species.
H3 Trade-offs Country-first searching is better for trip planning and habitat context. Species-first searching is better for identification and comparing variation across locations. A combined search is fastest when you already know both, but it can miss useful images if the site uses a slightly different name.
For a broader reference on alpine plants and cultivation, the Alpine Garden Society at Alpine Garden Society is a useful companion.
What growing conditions and structures does Harry Jans use for alpine plants in the Netherlands?
Harry Jans grows alpines in a low-altitude Dutch garden (Loenen, near Apeldoorn, about 27 m above sea level) using protective structures rather than open-ground mountain conditions. The core setup described on Jans Alpines is a large alpine house partly sunk into the ground, plus a smaller aluminium frame house used as a working area for propagating, sowing, potting up and storing potting soil and gravel. In the large alpine house, plants are grown in a plunge bed and in a tufa wall.
Outdoors, he also has a cold frame for raising plants. It is covered with 16 mm (5/8 inch) corrugated panels that run on rollers, and the front can be opened or closed with a louvered arrangement. The garden itself is described as varied, with ideas drawn from garden visits at home and abroad incorporated in his own way.
For a reader planning something similar, the practical lesson is that alpines in a wet, lowland climate depend less on altitude than on managing moisture, drainage and protection. A plunge bed buffers root temperatures and moisture; a tufa wall gives sharp drainage and crevice root runs; a covered cold frame keeps winter wet off young or choice plants while still allowing ventilation. A separate work house keeps messy propagation and storage out of the display house.
If you want to judge whether this approach fits your site, start with the structures you can control: a raised, very free-draining bed or plunge for the wettest months, and a ventilated cover for plants that resent winter wet. Then use the site's gallery and search function to compare species and country-of-origin conditions before choosing plants.
Which alpine and rock garden societies does Jans Alpines recommend for exchanging information and rare plants?
Jans Alpines doesn't publish a formal list of recommended societies. Instead, Harry Jans describes the ones that shaped his own collecting and growing, and they are the ones he points to for information exchange and rare-plant trading.
Alpine Garden Society (AGS) — He joined in the early 1980s, when few people were growing rock garden plants, specifically to gather information. His framing is that contacts made through the AGS and similar clubs made it possible to swap experiences and, in turn, trade rare plants and build a collection.
Nederlandse Rotsplanten Vereniging (N.R.V.), the Dutch Rock Garden Society — Founded 21 September 1985 with roughly 20 members; Jans was a founding member and served as president from 2000–2006. Membership later grew to about 550 and is not limited to the Netherlands — Belgians, Germans, Danes and others take part. This is the society he describes in most detail, so it is the clearest fit if you are Dutch or nearby and want a local group.
How to choose
| If you want… | Look at… |
|---|---|
| English-language publications and a long-established international membership | AGS |
| Meetings, local contacts and seed/plant exchange in the Low Countries and nearby | N.R.V. |
| A model for a national group in your own country | whichever equivalent society is nearest to you |
Jans's practical point is that the exchange matters more than the badge: information from experienced growers is what lets you learn, and the same relationships are what make rare plants obtainable. If you are starting out, join the society closest to you first for meetings and hands-on help, and add a broader international one for reading and seed lists. For more on his garden, alpine house and the societies he belongs to, see Jans Alpines.
What can I learn from the garden photos and alpine house images for designing my own rock garden?
You can learn a great deal about layout, plant placement and hardscape ideas, but treat the photos as inspiration rather than a construction manual — they show what was built, not step-by-step how to build it.
What the images are useful for
- Plant-in-context reference. With over 36,000 plant images, the gallery is strongest as a visual database: see how a species actually sits in a crevice, trough or tufa wall rather than how it looks in a nursery pot.
- Search by place or species. The site includes a search engine for country and plant species, so if you garden in a similar climate or want to see a plant in habitat, you can filter down quickly.
- Garden structure ideas. The owner, Harry Jans, describes a varied garden with one large alpine house partly sunk into the ground, a small aluminium frame house used as a workshop for propagating, sowing and potting, plus a cold frame with sliding corrugated panels. The garden images show how those elements are arranged and planted.
- Plunge and tufa techniques. In the large alpine house, plants are grown in a plunge bed and in a tufa wall. These images are the most directly transferable if you want to grow tricky alpines that need sharp drainage and cool roots.
- Climate awareness. The garden is in Loenen, the Netherlands, near Apeldoorn, at only about 27 m above sea level — a lowland garden, not a mountain one. That is encouraging if you garden on flat, wet ground, but it also means the photos won't tell you how plants behave at high altitude or in very dry summer climates.
How to use it for your own design
- Decide your constraint first: wet winters, hot summers, heavy soil or limited space. Then browse only the images that match that constraint, using the country and species search.
- Sketch your hardscape before choosing plants. The alpine house, cold frame and tufa wall here are structural decisions; copy the principle (raised, free-draining, coverable) rather than the exact dimensions.
- Build a shortlist of 10–15 plants you've seen growing in conditions like yours, then check whether each needs a plunge, a crevice or open ground.
- Visit gardens in person where you can. The site itself notes that ideas come from garden visits at home and abroad, and that exchanging experience with other growers is what makes a collection work.
A useful next step
For a lowland, damp-climate rock garden, start with one small raised or crevice bed and a covered frame for winter wet, then expand once you see what survives. If you want a wider pool of design references and cultivation advice, the Alpine Garden Society Alpine Garden Society and the Dutch Rock Garden Society (Nederlandse Rotsplanten Vereniging) are the kind of specialist groups the site's own history points to.
How does Harry Jans propagate and raise alpine plants from seed in his cold frame?
Harry Jans uses his cold frame as the intermediate stage between sowing and planting out: a protected, ventilated space where seedlings are raised on before they go into the alpine house or garden. The cold frame sits in his backyard alongside a large alpine house and a small aluminium frame house, the latter used as his workshop for propagating, sowing, potting up, and storing potting soil and gravel.
How the cold frame is set up
- Covered with corrugated panels (16 mm / 5/8 inch) that run on rollers, so the cover can be moved back rather than lifted.
- The front can be opened or closed using a louvered arrangement, giving adjustable ventilation.
- This combination lets him control airflow and temperature without dismantling the frame — useful for hardening off seedlings and protecting them from excess winter wet.
Where propagation fits in his routine
- Sowing, pricking out and potting up happen in the small aluminium frame house used as a workshop.
- Raised plants then spend time in the cold frame before moving to the large alpine house, where plants grow in a plunge bed and a tufa wall.
- His stated method of learning is exchange: contacts through alpine and rock garden societies let him compare experiences and trade rare plants, which builds a collection.
A practical reading of this setup
The design choices point to the two things that decide success with alpines from seed: drainage and air movement. A roller-mounted cover is quick to open on a mild day and quick to close when a cold night or heavy rain arrives, which matters more for small seedlings than for established plants. A louvered front allows gradual ventilation instead of a sudden full opening.
If you want to copy the approach, start with one frame and treat it as a transition zone, not a permanent home:
- Sow and prick out under cover in a workshop-type space.
- Move young plants to the cold frame once they can handle cooler conditions.
- Open ventilation progressively over one to two weeks before planting into a plunge bed or tufa wall.
- Keep the frame's cover easy to move — that single detail determines how often you actually ventilate.
For background on the plants and the societies whose members he exchanged seed and experience with, see the Jans Alpines gallery and plant search, and the Alpine Garden Society.
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