183 



CASSELL'S POPULAR GARDENING. 



almost the only ripples on the Dead Sea-like level are 

 pollards, a Rootery is the most easily available, and 

 perhaps, on the whole, the more appropriate. Gro- 

 tesque pollards abound, and are, in fact, in not a few 

 districts the most quaint features of the landscape. 

 Hence nothing could be more natural than their ac- 

 centuation into groups, and moulding them by the 

 eye and the hand of taste into features of pleasing 

 art in the garden or the landscape. 



everywhere of one character and width, with here 

 a group of plants encroaching, and there the walk 

 widening out around some special object of interest 

 and beauty — such should be the ever- varying cha- 

 racter of Rootery walks. 



Furnishing.— After all, this is the crucial point. 

 As well go into the timber-yard in search of the 

 picturesque as pile up masses of roots in pleasure- 



Portion of Kootery with Wood Anemone 



Walks. — As the Rootery is made to be seen, walks 

 should lead to every feature of interest and beauty. 

 As to the width of the walks, they should be narrow 

 — from a foot to a yard are convenient, and look well. 

 When gradients are steep, easy steps, a foot wide, 

 and six inches in the rise, are far preferable to steep 

 slopes ; and as for materials, wood may, of course, be 

 used, and if with the bark on, and as near as nature 

 left it, so much the' better. No very fine finish need 

 be put on Rootery walks. They bave been seen 

 even edged with stones and tiles ; this is a huge 

 mistake. Stones and gravel sufficient to keep 

 them clean and fairly smooth, but not always nor 



grounds or nooks of lawns, and leave them almost 

 bald and bare in their uncouth deformity. The 

 Rootery is, indeed, an anachronism unless it is 

 skilfully planted and fairly clothed. 



Rooteries demand three kinds of furniture : — 

 creepers, to half conceal, while yet revealing, the 

 most telling' points of the blocks ; plants to furnish 

 the surface of the same ; and yet others to clothe the 

 interstices between them. For the first, climbers or 

 creepers ; for the second, telling dwarf trees, shrubs, 

 herbaceous plants, Eerns, or bulbs ; for the third, in 

 small Rooteries, dwarf plants, such as Snowdrops, 

 "Wind-flowers, Winter Aconite, Woodroof or Forget- 



