Alpines haven't really figured in my dreams and schemes for the garden. But I was in a garden centre where they had a tray full of Arabis alpina subsp. caucasia, sometimes called Mountain Rock Cress. Very pretty and mobbed by bees. At £1.99 each it seemed silly not to buy one and a bee actually followed me towards the checkout trying to pollinate the one I had in my hand!
 Sure enough as soon as I had potted it up and hung the pot on a nail on a sunny wall it attracted the attention of a passing pollinator:

 I suppose I never really saw the appeal of growing alpines until recently, a rockery is not really my thing. Then last year I hiked high up on Mount Eddy in California beyond the lush mountain meadows into the seemingly arid elevations above. And it was teeming with alpines; far from the confines of suburbia these are the plants of vast open landscapes...