The Rock Garden 105 



semblance of naturalness. Chiselled surfaces should never be 

 exposed to view. Sandstone makes, perhaps, the most desirable 

 setting for plants, but any rocks or boulders that belong to the 

 region where the garden is situated are always the ones to use. 

 Some will surely be chosen for the sake of the mosses and lichens 

 upon them. Exquisite mosses can be cut in squares from the 

 woods, like sods from a lawn, and successfully transplanted to 

 carpet shady banks as if with deep green plush. 



What shall be planted in the rock garden ? That depends 

 upon whether it is to be made in Maine or California, on a rich 

 man s large estate or on the home acre of an impecunious plant- 

 lover who is his own gardener. From the list that follows this 

 chapter every one may make the selection best suited to his needs, 

 but in a general way it may be said that the most expert gardener 

 will find a fascinating hobby to tax his skill in attempting to grow 

 the rarer alpine plants; that no better environment for many of 

 our loveliest wild flowers, ferns, mosses, lichens and exquisitely 

 tinted toadstools and fungi can be secured than that of a rock 

 garden, where they properly belong; and that while many bulbs, 

 such as scillas, chionodoxas, single narcissus and daffodils may 

 fittingly be naturalised among the rocks, such prim, formal flowers 

 as tulips and hyacinths look out of place in a purely naturalistic 

 setting. 



Water and rocks have been closely associated in people s 

 minds since the miracle of Moses, and if they can be in the garden, 

 too, the most charming results are possible. A brook, a pool, or 

 a little cascade splashing its refreshing drops over the mossy rocks 

 where harebells, ferns, irises, cardinal flowers, trilliums and marsh 

 marigolds delight in them, would suggest the easy transition from 

 earth-loving plants to those of the bog and to true aquatics. Such 



