THE FLOEAL WORLD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 141 



formation, and the whole looks the facsimile of a choicely-selected bit 

 of Wales or Cumberland. By making the huge slabs and banks 

 surround a little bit of water, every sort of aspect or nook that 

 could be desired for a plant is at hand, and thus plants the most 

 diverse in character are accommodated happily within a few feet of 

 each other : under the shade of the great stones by the water, New 

 Zealand filmy ferns ; a few feet higher up, natives of Arctic Europe ; 

 and on the top, in the full sun and free air, the choicest gems of 

 temperate parts of Europe and America. 



By far the most distinct and extraordinary rockwork I have ever 

 seen is one in a private garden near Chester, which I had the 

 pleasure of visiting last summer in company with Mr. James 

 Dickson, of Chester. It is on a large scale, though there are no 

 colossal stones employed, as at Chatsworth and York. In the first 

 place large banks of earth were thrown up around a pleasant garden, 

 oblong in outline, and on the face of this great mound were built 

 imitations of the various alpine mountains known to the noble lady 

 who had it made at great expense. Bays and evergreens are clipped 

 into comical shape here and there in spots to counterfeit conifers^, 

 and low down where the rocky pathway winds in and out about 

 " the foot of the mountains " herbaceous vegetation predominates. 

 A little higher up in a valley are little Swiss cottages (acting also as 

 beehives), and then another turn round a corner covered with alpine 

 shrubs and bushes, to look up a deeply worn valley " snow-capped " 

 (with spar), and so on for several hundred feet. Altogether a very 

 remarkable and striking scene, which I had better say no more 

 about, as it very unlikely another of the same patterni'may be made, 

 while I hope thousands of simple design and real excellence as plant 

 abodes may yet be seen. 



It may be well to indicate a few of the difierences between a 

 good artificial or natural rockwork, and one of the prevalent type. 

 In the chinks and fissures of a well-made or a natural rockwork, 

 there is usually a moist bed of debris, or sandy gritty earth and 

 sandy peat or loam ; and as into this the roots sink with eagerness, 

 they there have at all times an abundant supply of moisture, and 

 can then bear any amount of scorching sun. In the common kind 

 of rockwork there is no fissure in the right sense of the word, and 

 if there is, it leads to nothing except perhaps a little dry dust, which, 

 perhaps, from the singular structure of the work, cannot by any 

 means get wet, and thus when the plants are put on it they usually 

 live about as long as they would if planted in a burning desert. 

 Even the commonest and most voracious British weeds cannot " lay 

 hold " of the things called rockworks that generally obtain. In a 

 well-made rockwork soil and " a place for the plants " and roots is a 

 leading consideration ; in the usual type the object seems to be the 

 getting together of an agglomeration of ugly burrs or stones, 

 with a wrinkle here and there, into which a little earth is shaken ; 

 and finally, on good rockwork interesting vegetation should prevail 

 all the year round, whereas in the ordinary type it is "put on " now 

 and ^then to die. This applies to the rockwork of the professed 

 maker nearly as much as to the work of the amateur practical 



