THE ROCK GARDEN 127 



with the first loss, for it cannot be remedied with- 

 out drastic measures. The vigorous growers, in 

 themselves, may be as desirable as could be wished 

 but it is a case of matter in the wrong place. 

 Their roots have burrowed beneath the stones, 

 coming up, it may be, on the other side and send- 

 ing out offsets with the utmost persistence. And 

 then no amount of weeding, nothing, in fact, 

 short of taking the whole structure to pieces, will 

 suffice to turn out the enemy and restore the 

 rockery to its pristine condition. This applies 

 more particularly to the smaller forms of rock- 

 work; but it is a danger to be guarded against 

 in all cases. The late Rev. C. W. Wolley Dod, 

 a past master in this phase of gardening, used to 

 tell how, in the days of his lesser experience, heed- 

 less planting had obliged him to abandon more 

 than one rockery to the encroachments of such 

 aggressives, and to build others for the delicate 

 gems of the mountain flora upon which his hopes 

 were set. " Don't be too anxious to see your rocks 

 covered," was his advice; and everyone who knows 

 and aspires to the cultivation of true Alpines will 

 be ready to endorse it. The principle holds good 

 even with less exacting plants, for nothing is more 

 exasperating than to find rampant growers com- 

 ing up in the middle of some not over-robust 

 favourite and hopelessly entangled with it. Be- 

 ware, therefore, of introducing coarse growers into 

 the rock garden, however beautiful and appropri- 

 ate they may be for other positions coarse, here, 

 being an epithet not of reproach, but of relative 

 interpretation. 



