^66 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



there round my two ponds I have immense boulders of 

 water-worn mountain limestone, specially selected blocks, 

 hollowed by wind and weather, in which I grow waving 

 masses of Saxifrage and Dianthus over the water; or, 

 yet again, you may very effectively bring the line of your 

 lake round under some dominant cliff of the rock work. 

 I have done this at one point of my New Garden, with 

 the most commanding efl'ect. The one drawback is that the 

 walk round the pond — an indispensable feature — is nar- 

 rowed, at this point, to an irreducible minimum of about 

 six inches. So that if, for instance, one wants to photo- 

 graph any plant on the promontory, one runs the risk, in 

 the course of the photographer's manoeuvres, of walking 

 innocently backwards into four feet of water. 



And, for a last word on shape. I can give one very 

 definite and valuable piece of advice. Wherever you 

 make your ponds, never let any consideration seduce you 

 into allowing straight lines or anything approaching to a 

 square or rectangle. One of the finest collections of 

 Nymphaeas that I know is quite spoiled from the decora- 

 tive point of view by being grown in a chain of raw- 

 looking little pools, more or less square, bounded by stiff, 

 straightish lines, and looking sadly artificial in their 

 bevelled banks of lawn. Close by there is a pool built 

 with proper wildness and elegance of design, and the 

 contrast is beautifully instructive. Of course, when you 

 are dealing witli the formal garden, and are growing 

 water-lilies as splendid adjuncts, not as the be-all and 

 end-all of the scheme, your square pool is well in place. 

 Under some stately terrace wall, what could be more 

 fitting than a long, long pool, perfectly rectangular, 

 rimmed with dressed stone, embedded in shorn turf, and 

 containing crowns of Nymphaea at regular intervals ? 

 But for the pool as the completion of the rock-garden, 

 anything at all suggestive of formality, such as a straight 



