266 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
there round my two ponds I have immense boulders of 
water-worn mountain limestone, specially selected blocks, 
hollowed by wind and weather, in which I grow waving 
masses of Saxifrage and Dianthus over the water; or, 
yet again, you may very effectively bring the line of your 
lake round under some dominant cliff of the rockwork. 
I have done this at one point of my New Garden, with 
the most commanding effect. The one drawback is that the 
walk round the pond—an indispensable feature—is nar- 
rowed, at this point, to an irreducible minimum of about 
six inches. So that if, for instance, one wants to photo- 
graph any plant on the promontory, one runs the risk, in 
the course of the photographer’s manceuvres, of walking 
innocently backwards into four feet of water. 
And, for a last word on shape. I can give one very 
definite and valuable piece of advice. Wherever you 
make your ponds, never let any consideration seduce you 
into allowing straight lines or anything approaching to a 
square or rectangle. One of the finest collections of 
Nymphaeas that I know is quite spoiled from the decora- 
tive point of view by being grown in a chain of raw- 
looking little pools, more or less square, bounded by stiff, 
straightish lines, and looking sadly artificial in their 
bevelled banks of lawn. Close by there is a pool built 
with proper wildness and elegance of design, and the 
contrast is beautifully instructive. Of course, when you 
are dealing with the formal garden, and are growing 
water-lilies as splendid adjuncts, not as the be-all and 
end-all of the scheme, your square pool is well in place. 
Under some stately terrace wall, what could be more 
fitting than a long, long pool, perfectly rectangular, 
rimmed with dressed stone, embedded in shorn turf, and 
containing crowns of Nymphaea at regular intervals ? 
But for the pool as the completion of the rock-garden, 
anything at all suggestive of formality, such as a straight 
