28 OUR EOCK-GARDEN 



It must be borne in mind that as the whole thing 

 consolidates it will sink considerably ; it will there- 

 fore be necessary to allow a good margin for this 

 in our estimate of the task before us. A neighbour 

 of ours has the usual seven or eight foot wall around 

 his garden, but his rock-work reaches to the top of 

 this, and is built boldly and irregularly forward from 

 this. Instead, then, of the formal brickwork, all that 

 we see and it is very pleasant to see are the 

 rocky flower- and fern-clad masses of rock, the trees 

 of the adjoining gardens, and the sky, forming the 

 background. 



The stones should be so built that each should 

 recede slightly from the one upon which it rests. 

 By this means the rains and dews find their way 

 into the interstices and keep the plants sufficiently 

 supplied with water : the reverse of this, a mass of 

 overhanging stone, means drought, and the speedy 

 death of any unfortunate plant that is placed in so 

 uncongenial a locality. The rock-work should not 

 be built up too steeply, in wall-like guise, or the 

 rain streams off it with undesirable rapidity, and so 

 the upper parts, especially, are too freely drained of 

 their necessary moisture. It is advisable to build 

 it in terraces rather than in one continuous slope 

 though these must not be too formal-looking or too 

 obvious in their repeating lines. 



In planting care must be taken to group the 

 plants together, as far as may be, not only with an 



