More than 300 alpine plants have been planted in the rockery of York’s Museum Gardens to give a splash of colour to the area this summer.

The rockery, near the Marygate entrance, was originally created by students of Askham Bryan College in 1980.

The new look rockery will be stocked by one of the UK’s top ten alpine growers, owned by a former Askham Bryan student, Michael Mitchell.

The replant of the rockery will be a temporary display, before a much larger rockery is created to honour the famous Victorian Backhouse Nursery which used to be in York and at one point was larger than Kew Gardens.

Sjaak Kastelijn, garden manager, said: “We have been working closely with Slack Top Nursery, near Hebden Bridge, to come up with a brilliant range of plants that will add colour and diversity to the Museum Garden’s rockery. It is nice to see Michael involved because of his links to Askham Bryan, but also because he is a gold medal winning grower of alpines with a great deal of expertise in this area. We hope that by working with him we can create a brilliant new look rockery for people to enjoy this summer.”