256 ALPINE FLOWERS 



The great drawback to the rockery is the difficulty of cooling 

 the rocks and atmosphere. The obvious way is to shade the rock 

 garden by means of overhanging trees. Unfortunately, shade is 

 fatal to the finest alpine flowers. Our only hope, I believe, is to 

 use water freely. This is costly, I admit, but there is no use in 

 doing things by halves. We must have plenty of water anyhow, 

 for seven tenths of the art of rock gardening is to give the plants 

 a never-failing supply of moving not stationary water. 

 There is an immense amount of talk in English books and papers 

 about lime-lovers and lime-haters, but if we can only get a perfect 

 water supply I believe we can cut out nearly all that pottering with 

 special soils. Witness the best alpine garden in America (Mrs. 

 Higginson's at Manchester, Mass.) where the gardener told me he 

 never put a bit of lime into any compost. 



An idea got at the Cambridge Botanical Garden filled me with 

 great hope. The scholarly and ingenious curator, Mr. R. Irwin 

 Lynch, was making a rockery in which the central feature was a 

 well. The paths all lead naturally to this moist, cool spot where 

 a person can get a drink of fresh, cold water and admire the 

 flowers on all sides and above him. The rocks, soil, and air are 

 all pleasantly cool and moist not damp or sour. The moisture 

 is expected to rise by capillarity through all the stones to the very 

 top, without interfering at all with the quicker downward drainage 

 through the soil. 



Mr. William Robinson frowns upon connecting water features 

 with rock gardening and I must confess that most of the lakelets, 

 cascades, etc., which I saw in England in connection with rock 

 gardens were unpleasing or even ludicrous. Yet Mr. Lynch's 

 idea seems adapted to our life in three ways. It has the practical 

 advantage of quenching thirst. It has the cultural advantage of 



