30 THE STORY OF MY ROCK GARDEN 



so as to be able to easily reach any desired part of the 

 rockery to attend to its little inhabitants, without risk 

 of treading upon surrounding plants, which might easily 

 be done were not definite spots allotted for this 

 purpose. 



At one point I arranged a series of rough steps in a 

 winding manner so that here and there they dis- 

 appeared behind small bluffs and having made them 

 water-tight with cement, I was enabled to introduce 

 water at the upper part and allow it to run down, in a 

 miniature cascade, to the pool at the foot ; in the hot 

 summer weather this looks very pretty, besides leaving 

 in odd places wee pools of water, to which our feathered 

 friends of the garden flock to drink and bathe. 



At various places I built steep shoulders of rockery, 

 dropping abruptly to the normal level of the surround- 

 ing part, and in the crevices of such shoulders, plants 

 like Saxifraga lingulata, longifolia, cochlearis minor 

 (and in moist shady corners Ramondias and Haberleas), 

 I found thrive all these plants prefer a more or less 

 vertical position, where their rosette is placed on edge, as 

 it were, thus allowing all moisture to rapidly run of!, 

 instead of hanging about the crown. The actual 

 method of planting, which is best done at the time 

 of building I will enter into later. 



At one side of my Rock Garden, facing south-east, 

 I made the soil much more gritty, right from the 



