96 WALL AND WATER GARDENS 



grass and beautiful flowering shrubs, not in single 

 specimens only, but in bold groups, has been a power- 

 ful means of instruction, and has done as much as 

 anything to help people to know the good plants and 

 how best to use them. 



There is a beautiful rock-garden in the grounds of 

 Messrs. Backhouse of York, a firm well known for 

 their admirable collection of Alpine plants. It is most 

 instructive to see in this fine garden some of the 

 difficult Alpine plants looking perfectly at home. 



The growth of interest in rock-plants has neces- 

 sarily given an immense impetus to horticultural 

 trade and allied crafts, for there are other good 

 firms that make a specialty of constructing rock- 

 gardens, while the success that is attained may be 

 seen by the illustrations. Indeed, rock-gardens and 

 Alpine gardens great and small, carefully made and 

 intelligently planted, may now be seen throughout the 

 country. 



In planting the rock-garden it is a good plan to 

 allot fairly long stretches of space to nearly related 

 and nearly allied plants, especially to those genera 

 that contain many desirable species and varieties. 

 Several genera will be largely represented ; of these 

 the principal are Saxifraga, Sedum, Sempervivum, Cam 

 panula, Silene, Linaria, Iberis, Iris, Draba, Dianthus, 

 and Primula. This way of grouping, if well arranged 

 with some intergrouping of smaller plants, will not 

 only have the best effect but will have a distinct 

 botanical interest ; not botanical in the drier sense of 

 mere classification, but botanical as a living exposition 



