306 MY GARDEN. 



stone for their roots. The interstices in the blocks of stone above 

 ground afford sheltered places in which the leaves of the plants are 

 protected from cold winds in sharp weather. Where sandstone can 

 be obtained in unlimited quantities, perhaps the best alpinery would 

 be a mere heap of irregularly shaped stones with the crevices partially 

 filled with good soil, so as to leave a rough surface with angles of 

 sandstone projecting like the bristles of a hedgehog. The labourers 

 employed to make a mound, will unless you stand over them and 

 watch the work being done always insist on ^ building a structure 

 something like a wall ; whereas the blocks of stone should be so 

 arranged as to present outlines as irregular as possible. The 

 proper sandstone may be obtained, but at considerable cost, from 

 Tunbridge Wells, from Balcombe, and from other parts of Sussex ; 

 and as those places are at some distance from my garden, I have 

 only been able to indulge in that material to a very limited extent. 



I liked my first alpinery so well, and my plants grew so large, that 

 I speedily made a second. This latter is a large mound, and affords 

 room for hundreds of species. It presents an irregular figure from 

 every point of view, rising at some places to two feet above the general 

 level of the ground, and sinking below it at others, till it shelves in 

 one direction to the water of the central stream. The object of this 

 is to obtain series of surfaces exposing a large extent of the mound to 

 view at once ; and also to present an arrangement by which, at various 

 parts, the shade or the full blaze of the sun may be commanded, 

 together with every degree of dryness or moisture of the soil, that each 

 plant may require for its growth. The whole of the alpinery has about 

 six inches of brick rubbish forked in, and hundreds of rough flint stones 

 from the chalk quarries are scattered over the surface. Some part of 

 the alpinery is arranged so that narrow fissures are left between the 

 stones, and these are so placed that moisture always exists. Some plants 

 that live in such a position would die in any other. I observed on the 

 Cornichie road, near the coast of the Mediterranean, that the maiden- 

 hair fern always appeared wherever a vein of sandstone existed. Many 

 rare plants are found in rough walls on hill-sides, as in that situation 



