FAULTY ROCK WORK. Sg 



ROCKERIES. 



A well-arranged and judiciously-planted rockery is a welcome feature in either 

 a large or comparatively small garden. There are positions where even bare 

 bold rocks, naturally grouped, are attractive ; but when the arrangement ajffords 

 sites for a great variety of plants, a beautiful addition is made, and the "rock 

 garden" proves a continuous source of pleasure. Such a wealth of Nature's floral 

 gems, rare or otherwise, are available for planting among stones, that the wonder is 

 more rockeries are not formed in which plants will flourish. There are certainly 

 many which, through errors in construction, can only result in disappointment. 



A rockery may be an improvement on Nature, if such be thought possible, or it 

 may be a mere collection of stones 

 jumbled together, and soil worked be- 

 tween them, or else an arrangement of 

 sloping mounds or banks of soil, with 

 stones planted in them, suggestive of a 

 dogs' cemetery. Tig. 45, sketched in a 

 public park, is shown as an example to 

 be avoided. The stones or other mate- 

 rials used ought to be arranged much 

 as they either crop up, or are found in a 



Fig. 45. Faulty Eockwoek.— Stoijes ixseeted in a 



natural state, and yet with cavities in Sloping Baxe. 



which soil and small stones are kept in 



position (not washed away), with a view to affording the cool, moist, deep root-run 

 needed by many of the best of rock plants. It is not a question of building a rough, 

 solid wall, but rather of providing suitable sites for beautiful flowers, without actually 

 departing from Nature's arrangement. The mere fact of placing plants near to stones 

 does not invariably lead to their thriving satisfactorily, while there are only a com- 

 paratively few species that will flourish on what are little better than bare ledges. 



A rockwork must be serviceable as well as ornamental, a self-evident fact yet too 

 often ignored. Where it shall be formed must be determined by circumstances, and 

 the main object in view. In some instances, a rockwork with a background of ever- 

 green shrubs might prove the readiest means of shutting out from view something 

 that is objectionable, or it may completely surround and enclose an unsightly tank or 



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