ROCK GARDENING FOR 

 AMATEURS 



PART: i 



Making y Planting and Tending 



CHAPTER I 

 The Aim of a Rock Garden 



IT is rather extraordinary, yet nevertheless true, that 

 if one talks to the unskilled amateur gardener about 

 a rock garden (and is it not a fact that there are some 

 very expert amateurs ?) he realises at once what is meant. 

 Attempt, however, to broach the subject of alpine flowers 

 and he confesses immediately to bewilderment. He seems 

 to be unaware that the object of a rock garden is, or should 

 be, to enable one to grow the flowers that have their 

 homes on the fringe of eternal snow, where " hills peep 

 o'er hills, and alps on alps arise " ; that flood the lush 

 mountain meadows, rock crevices, and stony moraines 

 with most exquisite blossom at the quick coming of 

 spring. It is true that all the flowers grown in the rock 

 garden are not denizens of the high alpine zone, neverthe- 

 less that is the home of the great majority. The list of 

 mountain flowers is so extensive, their classification 

 seems so complex, and their names are so strange that 



