CHAPTER III 
ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF ROCK GARDENS 
WELL-CONCEIVED and properly constructed rockery 
is undoubtedly a feature of outstanding value and 
of perpetual interest such as any garden owner may desire. 
A heap of stones, ugly brick burrs, clinkers, and root stumps 
of trees is an abortion and abomination, not a rockery. 
Nor can it be considered clever or artistic conception to 
plank down between the iron railings and the bay window 
of a suburban villa or in the middle of a square or oblong 
flat of lawn grass a pretentious but miserably puny 
effort to reproduce some towering peak of the Swiss 
Alps. All efforts to build little Alps in gardens are 
puny and ridiculous, and when we begin talking about 
imitating nature and reproducing her most majestic 
handiworks we make ourselves pitifully childish. Let 
us be content to grow alpine plants for the enjoyment 
of their beauty and charm, and when we make a 
rockery let it be with no delusion that we are making a 
mountain. The form or contour of a rockery must depend 
upon its situation, its immediate surroundings, and its 
dimensions. A garden on a hillside, with water, and with 
informal groups or belts of trees, offers opportunities for 
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