1 5 o 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF GARDENING. 



barely have time to ripen their seeds ere the snowy mantle again descends upon 

 them and the long winter darkness ensues. Very different are the climatic conditions 

 of the English rock garden — mild and muggy winters, with spells of sharp frost 

 alternating with sudden thaws, followed, perhaps, by biting north-east winds and cutting 

 hailstorms, and so on ad infinitum. Small wonder if the little strangers, bewildered 

 by these unforeseen vicissitudes, enveloped in a steamy mist just as they were preparing 

 for their long winter's rest, frozen just as the mild weather has tempted the sap to 

 flow again, fail to grasp the situation and eventually succumb. For the enthusiastic 

 rock gardener, however, difficulties are only created to be surmounted, and, in spite of the 

 clerk of the weather, the losses of the most resourceful are surprisingly small. It must on 

 no account be concluded, from the foregoing remarks, that the rock garden is entirely 

 furnished with such capricious subjects as those above alluded to. These rare gems, whose 

 successful culture is beset with such uncertainty, form but a tithe of the delightful plants 



A WELL-CONSTRUCTED ROCK GARDEN. 



that in the springtide of the year will clothe the ledges with beauty; be the winter what 

 it may, in fact, the rock" garden may easily be filled with subjects of the highest decorative 

 merit all of which are absolutely hardy, but it is against all precedent to expect that one 

 who has made this branch of gardening his hobby will be deterred by fear of failure 

 from trying his hand at coaxing the less tractable Alpines to make a permanent home in 

 the nooks he has so carefully prepared for their reception. 



Rock gardens should be so constructed as to offer a congenial abode for as many 

 genera and species of mountain-loving plants as possible, and for this reason they should 

 afford the varied conditions and exposures best suited to their individual needs. Some 

 plants, such as Ranunculus glacialis, may be found, bearing from thirty to forty flowers, 

 within a couple of yards of the snow at the foot of a glacier, growing in what is, apparently, 

 nothing but disintegrated rock" ; other little Alpines may be seen spreading their rosettes of 

 leaves over a tiny crack in the rock into which the blade of a pen-knife will barely enter ; 



