THE WISLEY EOCK AND WATER GARDEN. 



225 



THE WISLEY BOOK AND WATEE GAEDEN. 



By J. E. PuLHAM, F.E.H.S. 



[Read August 13, 1912; Mr. J. Hudson, V.M.H., in the Chair.] 



Bold indeed would he be who attempted, at the present time to add to 

 the volume of information, correct and otherwise, which exists upon 

 the subject of rock and wat^r gardening, and I certainly should have felt 

 considerable diffidence in approaching my task to-day, but for the fact 

 that I am dealing — in I fear, a somewhat imperfect manner — with a 

 specific example, and one coming under my own observation. 



One is inclined to marvel at the tremendous growth that has taken 

 place in the love of rock and water gardening in this country during 

 recent years, and not only in this country but abroad, for it is a cult 

 which has " caught on " in America and on the Continent. 



One looks back to the time, not very long since, when rock gardens 

 were to be found only in the more important gardens, and even they 

 were not, perhaps, such as we see to-day. The reasons for this are not 

 far to seek ; the chief one being the inevitable reaction from the severe 

 formalism, which was carried to such excess during the eighteenth 

 century and later. In this connexion, yeoman service has been done by 

 Mr. William Eobinson, and while there may be many who do not 

 quite agree with all his trenchant criticisms upon the old style, which, 

 after all, had much to recommend it when not carried to excess, they 

 yet feel that in the main he was right; for not only did he criticize 

 the old but pointed the way to a better and saner one. 



In his early time there were few who had not heard of the beauty 

 and vividness of colour of alpine flow^ers, but such knowledge was 

 usually accompanied by the notion that they could be met with only 

 upon the higher ranges of the Alps, and that it was impossible to culti- 

 vate them at lower elevations. This idea had been promulgated, more 

 or less, by some of the most famous botanists and horticulturists of the 

 period. Once it began, however, to be instilled into the minds of the 

 garden-loving public that it w^as possible to have alpines growing 

 literally at their ow^n front door, it became apparent that rock-gardening 

 was a branch of horticulture which had come to stay, for everyone with 

 any garden at all desired to introduce alpine plants, until none is now 

 considered complete without a portion being devoted to them. 



This tendency having asserted itself to such a great extent, it was 

 small wonder that the' Eoyal Horticultural Society should, when 

 obtaining possession of the gardens at Wisley, take into consideration, 

 amongst many other improvements, the construction of a rock garden 

 on a more or less extensive scale. This project was assisted by the 

 fact that they possessed a site on a hillside in many ways well 



