CHAPTER XIV 

 The Rock Border 



WHO cannot aspire to a rock garden must needs be 

 content with a rock border, which, if properly 

 made, differs only from the other in extent, in height, 

 and in variety of aspect. The higher you build, the 

 greater is the scope for sunny and shadowed places, 

 and the more alpines you may expect to grow successfully. 

 Yet so wide is the choice of rock-garden flowers that there 

 are more than enough from which to select even for a 

 rock border. There is no reason why every garden 

 favoured with fresh air and sunshine should not possess 

 its rock border filled with many of the choicest of alpine 

 flowers. Sunshine is of far greater importance than 

 shade ; those that will thrive only in the shade are 

 very few in number, and even in a low rock border it 

 is easy to contrive sufficient shadowed spots for the 

 accommodation of such as need it. 



What, then, is a rock border ? It is a rock garden 

 on a very lowly scale, and it fails to rise to the higher 

 dignity owing only to lack of space. To get height 

 in the rock garden obviously there must be a broad base 

 covering a considerable area of ground. If, however, 



the site at disposal measures only, say, ten feet wide, 



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