1870.] CONSTRUCTION OF ROCK-GARDENS. 319 



THE CONSTRUCTION" OF ROCK -GARDENS. 



In our last number we called the attention of our readers to Mr 

 Robinson's interesting book on Alpine Flowers. We are now enabled 

 to present an illustration taken from that work, bearing on the con- 

 struction of rock-gardens — a feature of gardening by no means intelli- 

 gently understood generally, judging from the sorry exhibitions of this 

 kind of workmanship we sometimes meet with. 



"Rockwork is," says Mr Robinson on page 30, "as a rule, made for 

 the display of mountain plants, or those which by their dwarfness fall 

 into the class commonly known as Alpines. Some cover rockwork 

 with climbing shrubs and dwarf bushes, but in every case, unless 

 where a rock is introduced for its own effect in the landscape, the 

 object is to grow plants. Now, as very few of the subjects alluded to 

 like shade, or even tolerate it, it follows this is an ignorant and bad 

 practice. Many persons who arrange such things doubtless fear the 

 sun burning up their plants ; yet the sun that beats down on the Alps 

 and Pyrenees is fiercer than that which shines on the British garden. 

 But while the Alpine sun cheers the plants into beauty, it also melts 

 the snows above, and water and frost grind down the rocks into earth ; 

 and thus, enjoying both, the roots form perfectly healthy plants. 

 Fully- exposed plants do not perish from too much sun, but simply 

 from want of water. Therefore it cannot be too widely known that 

 full exposure to the sun is the first condition of perfect rock-plant cul- 

 ture — abundance of free soil under the root, and such a disposition of 

 the soil and rocks that the rain may permeate through and fall off the 

 rocks, being also indispensable. 



" The preceding plan can be carried out in the very smallest places. 

 The next is quite as easily formed on the fringe of any shrubbery. An 

 open, slightly elevated, and, if possible, quiet, isolated spot, should be 

 chosen, and a small rock-garden so arranged as to appear as if natur- 

 ally cropping out of the shrubbery. With a few cart-loads of stones 

 and earth, excellent effects may be produced in this way. The follow- 

 ing illustration well explains my meaning ; an irregularly sloping bor- 

 der, with a few mossy bits of rock peeping from a swarming carpet of 

 Sandworts, Mountain-pinks, Rock-cresses, Sedums and Saxifrages, 

 Arabises and Aubrietias, with a little company of Fern fronds sheltered 

 in the low fringe of shrub behind the mossy stones. 



" Having determined on the position of the bed, the next thing to 

 do is to excavate the ground to the depth of 2 feet or thereabout, 

 and to run a drain from it if very wet. If not, it is better let alone, 

 as a good deal of the success depends upon the beds being continually 

 moist ; and in dry soils, instead of draining, it would be better to put 



