ROCK, WALL AND BOG GARDENS. 



Alpine 

 gardens. 



FIG. 268. STEPS IN THE WALL GARDEN. 



best should be made of them in their rough state. The result will be what is sometimes 

 called " crazy " paving, and it will possess a large number of little cracks which will 

 accommodate small rock plants. The steps will be treated in the same way and, when 

 the whole is planted, they will add very much to the effect of the garden (111. No. 268) . 



Usually, however, when paths and 

 steps are planted, sooner or later 

 the planting is overdone, and a 

 very untidy effect results. It should 

 never be lost sight of that they 

 are intended for walking upon, and 

 the planting should be kept quite 

 subsidiary to this first and greatest 

 requirement. This will best be 

 done by keeping the centre quite 

 clear and confining the planting 

 to the sides, corners and the risers 

 of the steps. The planted paving 

 is extremely useful in allowing of 

 the fuller use of annuals grown 

 from seed, as the seeds can be 

 scattered here so much more 

 successfully than on the face of a wall. 



The real aesthetic difference between the wall garden and the rock garden is that 

 the first is confessedly an attempt to beautify a utilitarian feature as a wall must always 

 be, whether erected for the shelter it gives or to retain an earth bank, while the rockwork, 

 except for such adjuncts as stepping stones (111. No. 269), is copied from Nature 

 as faithfully as possible. 



Where, as so often seems to be the case, this difference is not realized, and the wall 

 looks rather like an attempt to imitate a natural rock, or the rockwork is obviously built, 

 the whole result is spoiled and the work looks purile and affected. 



There is again this difference, that the rock garden, with its direct portrayal of 

 Nature, demands that it be planted with shrubs, ferns and flowers that will appear 

 indigenous. Anything pronouncedly exotic will clash most forcibly with the general 

 sentiment of the whole scheme, such as yuccas, cacti or tropical grasses, though one 

 often sees the last of these in such positions, showing how little this is realized. 



This consideration points to the real function of the slightly more conventionalized 

 wall garden. In planting it we are bound by no such limitations, and almost anything 

 may be used so long as there is not too great a mixture, for even here we shall 

 obtain a better effect by the exercise of a little care in selecting the plants so that, 

 while there is an avoidance of monotony on the one hand, we have not the appearance 

 of an untidy mixture on the other. 



The one exception which I would make to this rule is when the whole of the rock 

 garden is given up to one particular class of plants, when the rockwork becomes by evident 

 and tacit consent merely the best available background for the class of shrubs to be 

 grown. Thus, in the case of the Alpine garden, it is impossible to ape the glories of 

 the Alps, and so reproduce the conditions under which these attractive little plants have 

 their natural habitat, and the rockwork forms the most suitable background available. 

 Still, the writer is inclined to think that the most successful Alpine gardens from the 

 point of view of collective effect are those in which the background consists either of 

 virgin rock, or a rough built wall which, being to hand in the first instance, have 

 obviously been adopted for that reason rather than a rock garden specially made for 



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