Robin Magowan’s Rock Garden

About

Robin Magowan's tour de force of a crevice garden occupies a view-filled mountainside site ten miles south of the Santa Fe Plaza. A garden of surprise and astonishment, it is home to well over a thousand alpine species from mostly granitic soils all over the world. The visitor arriving at the house's parking lot has a choice of two mason-designed staircases heading up the hillside, set on both sides with miniature plants popping out from cracks in the large rocks. The one on the east side, steep but with railing, holds a unique set of trough-like insets, along with larger plants popping and spilling out of big black rocks. The house itself is ringed with a series of gardens set on 3- to 5-foot-high cemented terrace walls among preserved piñon trees and inset troughs, before descending to a pair of studios. Past them, and a couple of crevice gardens, a path leads out to a spectacular outcrop featuring a hot tub and, in good light, one hundred mile views. The size of the garden allows for a number of larger plants from alpine transition zones—spilling five-foot Astragalus angustifolius, Acantholimon hohenakeri, many other Turkish acantholimons and onosmas, silver-leaved verbascums and salvias, all at home in a land of little water. Seeing the garden should take about three-quarters of an hour, or less, should one not want to chance the two staircases rising from the driveway parking lot.

This garden’s estimated size is 1/2 acre.

2025 Open Day:  Saturday, May 31

Hours:10-12, 12-2, 2-4