30 ALPINE FLOWERS. Part I. 



mirable in some public garden, especially in those having large 

 collections of alpine and herbaceous plants, from which many 

 good things could be at once selected. Something of the sort 

 might be made in any garden — ay, even in a London square, 

 or in any other position fully exposed to the sun, and never 

 under the shade and drip of trees. 



Rockwork is, as a rule, made for the display of mountain 

 plants, or those which by their dwarfness fall into the class com- 

 monly known as alpines. Some cover rockwork with cUmbing 

 shrubs and dwarf bushes, but in every case, unless where a rock 

 is introduced for its own effect in the landscape, the object is to 

 grow plants. Now, as very few of the subjects above alluded 

 to like shade, or even tolerate it, it follows that this is an ignorant 

 and bad practice. Many persons who arrange such things 

 doubtless fear the sun burning up their plants ; yet the sun that 

 beats down on the Alps and Pyrenees is fiercer than that which 

 shines on the British garden. But, while the alpine sun cheers 

 the flowers into beauty, it also melts the snows above, and water 

 and frost grind down the rocks into earth ; and thus, enjoying 

 both, the roots form perfectly healthy plants. Fully exposed 

 plants do not perish from too much sun, but simply from 

 want of water. Therefore it cannot be too widely known 

 that full exposure to the sun is the first condition of per- 

 fect rock-plant culture — abundance of free soil under the root, 

 and such a disposition of the soil and rocks that the rain 

 may permeate through and not fall off the rocks, being also 

 indispensable. 



The preceding plan can be carried out in the very smallest 

 places'. The next is quite as easily formed on the fringe of 

 any shrubbery. An open, slightly elevated, and, if possible, 

 quiet, isolated, spot should be chosen, and a small rock- 

 garden so arranged as to appear as if naturally cropping out 

 of the shrubbery. With a few cart-loads of stones and earth 

 excellent effects may be produced in this way. The following 

 illustration well explains my meaning : an irregularly sloping 

 border with a few mossy bits of rock peeping from a swarming 

 carpet of Sandworts, Mountain-pinks, Rock-cresses, Sedums and 

 Saxifrages, Arabises and Aubrietias, with a little company of 

 fern-fronds sheltered in the low fringe of shrub behind the 

 mossy stones. 



Having determined on the position of the bed, the next thing 



