ROCK, WALL AND WATER GARDENS 



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insist that each shall find for himself, by 

 experience, just how and where they 

 delight to grow. And shall one blame 

 them ? The more exacting they are the 

 greater is our delight when the secret is 

 solved, and as a consequence the more 

 tender our care of them. 



Yet thus it is that tor every rock 

 garden one sees there are hundreds of 

 rockeries — where scarcely the lowliest 

 and least fastidious of mountain flowers 

 will deign to grow. 



In planting the rock garden it is best to 

 turn for lessons to Nature's vast wild 

 garden, for their variety is limitless, their 

 capacity for teaching is inexhaustible. 

 Here, the more one learns the more one 

 finds there is still to learn. One must 

 first appreciate the glamour of the rock 

 garden, for it has an idealistic as well 

 as a practical aspect, and even to the 

 gardener perhaps the one is as important 

 as the other. The charm of the rock 

 garden depends upon its approximation 

 to Nature's planting of the mountain 

 chains, the Alpine peaks, the rugged 

 waterways, the lonely, wooded heights. 

 See there how Nature sows and plants 

 and tends her tiniest flowers, and Time, 

 the hoary gardener, throws a halo over 

 all. There, and there only, is it possible 

 to learn, and all unconsciously, how the 

 spirit of the leaves and flowers pervades 

 the grandest rock garden of all. Take 

 a lesson from the heather-covered slopes 

 — carpets of purple bloom when summer 

 wanes, from the huge moss and lichen- 

 crested boulders that appear to have 

 stopped suddenly in a headlong course 

 down the mountain side, from the regular 

 succession of rocks watering with mar- 

 vellous precision the tiny plants that 

 cluster round them ; aye, and more than 

 all these things, let the poetry of the land- 

 scape make its appeal to you. For there 

 is poetry even in the wildest of Nature's 

 wilds, in the play of liglit and shadow 

 from hill-top to valley, in the music of 

 the mountain streams, in the gaunt, grey 

 rocks, the sombre pines, and above all 

 in thd wondrous variety of her leaves 

 and flowers. 



At the moment, perhaps, one fails to 

 realise that such an appeal can help one 

 as a gardener, but in the fulness of time 

 that realisation will come. Its practical 



value may never come home to you ; you 

 may exercise it unconsciously, but the in- 

 effaceable memory from which inspiration 

 springs must have an influence on your 

 work. As the rock garden grows under 

 your care it will be more or less natural, 

 according to the depth and the poetry of 

 the inspiration derived from those lone 

 days and hours among the wilds of 

 Nature's own rock garden of the hills. 

 No true gardener, and above all no true 

 rock gardener, can stand unmoved among 

 his favourite plants as lie sees them 

 growing in full beauty and perfect 

 association, amid the sul^lime grandeur 

 of their Alpine home. On peaks un- 

 climbable, clinging as if for very life 

 on giddy precipice, yet more than safe, 

 painting the ground with great patches 

 of brilliant colour that rivals the cloud- 

 less sky in its depth of tone, springing 

 from mossy bed on the shady side of 

 some massive boulder, or nesthng cosily 

 in the shelter of mountain scrub, they 

 thrive and bloom as though the very 

 world were one of blossom, and all must 

 play their part. And when the glory of 

 sunset spreads and the snow is stained 

 with the Alpen-glow, an added glamour 

 touches them, a beauty that is scarcely 

 theirs possesses them, and the subtle 

 charm of the mountain flowers comes 

 home to one. When working in the 

 artificial rock garden one lives again those 

 days among the Alpine flowers in Alpine 

 lands ; the memory of that enchanting 

 time fills one with a deep longing, and 

 a sense of real delight. 



But what of rock garden plants ? 

 Ah ! bewildering variety, incomparable 

 beauty ! They come from Scotland's 

 misty moors, from Wales' dew-laden 

 heights, from the sublime fastnesses of 

 the Himalaya, from the Alpine lands of 

 Europe, and far continents. Thus who 

 shall tell how and what they are ? I should 

 not care to try. But some there are that 

 must be named, since if one would make 

 a rock garden only the most accom- 

 modating must be chosen at first. The 

 Alpine Pinks, neat little tufts that are 

 ever-grey rather than evergreen, are 

 indispensable in early summer time ; 

 flowers of white or rose or pink bedeck 

 the leaves, hiding the rock surfaces on 

 which they love to grow. Then Bell- 



