CHAPTER V 
ON THE CULTURE OF ALPINE PLANTS IN 
SMALL GARDENS 
HE choice of aspect or exposure, the provision of a 
particular kind of soil or compost for some fastidious 
plant, and the exercise of care in planting, constitute the 
elementary principles of the cult of alpine plants, but 
although described as elementary because they must form 
the subject of our earliest studies and experiments, they 
must never be considered unimportant, for they must 
remain with us and claim our constant attention as long 
as we continue to cultivate. I am far more concerned 
about these three points than I am about the plan or extent 
of the rockery. First, because with a knowledge of these 
essentials we shall have already learned enough to enable 
us to avoid most of the common errors of rock-work con- 
struction; and, secondly, because with this knowledge at 
our command we may quite successfully grow an absorbingly 
interesting collection of alpines, even though we cannot 
possess a rockery at all; and I am convinced that among 
the thousands of owners of small gardens there must be a 
large proportion to whom such a proposition will strongly 
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