ARTIFICIAL ROCK WORK. 63 



REMARKS ON ARTIFICIAL ROCK WORK. 



There are many plants that succeed best when planted 

 among rocks, and for their accommodation and to show off 

 their beauties to the greatest advantage, it is common in 

 large gardens to have an appendage, called a rockery. 

 This is made of a collection of stones in the rough, or 

 natural state, laid up without much order, with soil, which 

 should be concealed as much as possible by the fragments 

 of rocks. 



As some plants succeed best in the shade, a portion of 

 the rock work should be partly surrounded by trees. 



Triliiums, Orchids, Cypripediums, and many other wild 

 plants found in the woods and swamps, with an appropriate 

 soil, would succeed very well in such a locality. I find an 

 excellent article on this subject, written, by my late friend 

 J. E. Teschemacker, Esq., in one of the back numbers of 

 the Horticultural Journal, which, as it is appropriate, I 

 insert. He says : 



" There are many plants with rather small flowers which 

 possess exquisite colors and elegant forms; the charm of 

 these is in a great measure lost by their being planted in 

 the bed where the pitiless shower defaces their delicate 

 tints with earthy splashes, or their distance from the eye 

 causes their minute yet elegant characters to pass unno- 

 ticed ; other plants run over the surface of the flower 

 border to great distances^ interfering with their neighbors, 

 which would look much better hanging pendant from the 

 crevice of a rock, or covering the sunny bank with their 

 numerous blossoms. 



" Nature, who is always an interesting and instructive 

 teacher, points out such facts plainly, by often exhibiting 



