THE THEORY OF GARDEN DESIGN 155 



thrive on them; and therefore it is only right and 

 natural to cover them with such flowers, using rocks 

 where they are needed, to protect the plants from 

 drought and to prevent the soil from washing away. 

 The rock garden is always a difficult problem in gar- 

 deij design, and many people who cannot do without 

 the beauty of Alpine flowers make no attempt to 

 solve it. They place their rock garden in any place 

 horticulturally convenient without considering whether 

 it has any congruity with the rest of their design. 

 In some cases this cannot be helped. If your garden 

 is all flat, and if you must have a rock garden, no 

 art will make it agree with formal surroundings. But 

 if there are any steep slopes in your garden, some 

 wildness in the planting of them will appear natural 

 even if everything else is formal; and, even if they 

 seem suitable to the growth only of the easier rock 

 plants, they can usually by a little contrivance be 

 arranged so as to provide homes for the more delicate 

 Alpines. Yet this obvious use of natural slopes is 

 often neglected where there are rock gardens placed 

 in the most unnatural and incongruous positions. 

 Garden designers, in spite of the naturalistic move- 

 ment, are still unwilling to take the line of least re- 

 sistance, and would rather do violence to nature, 

 even when professing to imitate her, than adapt her 

 to their own purposes and coax her into the service 

 of man. 



