12 ROCK AND WATER GARDENS 



Where natural rock stratum exists a few inches below 

 the soil, it will always be better to make the rock garden 

 by excavation rather than by the addition of fresh stone 

 work. The practice of employing artificial stone sub- 

 stitutes, or even carted stone, when already there is 

 a natural outcropping of rock in the ground, is in- 

 defensible. In such cases the difference between the 

 real and the apparent is bound to be strongly marked. 



Much of the artificial rockwork now so common in 

 both public and private gardens is a poor enough 

 imitation of the real thing. The fault lies not so much 

 in the material itself, as in the manner in which it is 

 employed. The ease with which it can be worked, and 

 its low cost, considering the strength and solidity of its 

 appearance, has led to a new form of desecration in the 

 gardens of the wealthy. I have seen an example of this 

 recently, and can only regret that the owner of that most 

 precious heritage, an old-fashioned English garden, 

 should be so misled as to convert a sunken court into an 

 Alpine peepshow, which might well serve as a sixpenny 

 attraction at Earl's Court. Until the advent of this 

 pernicious stone work, nothing could have been more 

 beautiful than this sunken lawn with its weathered sun 

 dial, and terraced borders of herbaceous flowers, 

 completely encircling it like the holiday throng at a 

 Grecian amphitheatre. In the time of roses one felt that 

 here indeed pulsed the heart of the English garden. 

 But now all is changed. The turf and roses are swept 

 away, the sundial no longer tells the summer hours. 

 The place is surrounded by an absurd range of beetling 

 crags and frowning cliffs ; the ground is strewn with 

 tufa boulders. Small paths and rocky steps suggest a 

 maze, and horresco referens, this "garden" is approached 

 by rockwork tunnels, in which there is sufficient light to 

 reveal rows of artificial stalactites ! 



If natural stone is unobtainable in the neighbourhood. 



