2IO Landscape Gardening 



things are undertaken on too small a scale they only succeed 

 in appearing ridiculous. 



Rockeries should be formed as much as possible of natural 

 materials. All the products of art, such as fused bricks, 

 scoriae, and the far more vulgar constituents of which such 

 ornaments are often constructed about towns, are quite 

 incompatible with any amount of rusticity. And this last 

 should be the distinguishing element of all rockeries. 



As in the material employed so also in the mode of con- 

 struction followed, rockeries should be conspicuous for a 

 natural character. No appearance of art and no approach 

 to the regularity or smoothness proper to works of art will 

 be at all in place here. On the contrary, the surface of the 

 whole cannot be too irregular or too variedly indented or 

 prominent. An additional projection must be given to some 

 of the parts by moderate-sized bushes, or short-stemmed 

 weeping trees. Evergreen shrubs or low trees will be par- 

 ticularly useful. Provision will therefore have to be made 

 in the placing of the stones for planting a few shrubs and a 

 greater number of herbaceous rock plants in their interstices, 

 which should be left broader or smaller according to the size 

 of the plant that may be required in them. No rockery will 

 ever be interesting unless well supplied with all such fittings. 



For ordinary practice, the materials of which a rockery, 

 however small, is formed should lie on their broadest or fiat 

 sides, and not be set on edge, much less be placed with their 

 points upwards. Little deviations may occasionally be al- 

 lowed for variety, but the mass will have more appearance 

 of solidity and strength and be more accordant with nature's 

 teachings if each piece be laid flat, with the outer edge shad- 

 ing a little downwards rather than upwards. 



A rock garden may, if its size demands it, be traversed or 

 made more generally accessible by narrow walks just capable 



