CHAPTER IX 
THE ROCK GARDEN 
Mr. G. C. Joad. 
A rock garden is nowadays universally deemed an indispensable 
adjunct to a garden of any pretensions. It is only in such a place 
that the beautiful Alpine and sub-Alpine floras 
can be adequately represented. Besides this, it 
affords the best possible place in which to grow many plants of 
lowland origin which need special care and watching. Yet the 
Kew rockery is comparatively young. Sir Joseph Hooker had long 
cherished the hope of providing Kew with a rock garden worthy 
of the name, but it was not until 1882 that an opportunity occurred 
of fulfilling it. In the previous year a number of gentlemen 
interested in this branch of horticulture had addressed a memorial 
to the Government praying for the formation of a rock garden 
worthy of the establishment. This memorial might have shared the 
fate of many similar documents had there not happened, soon 
afterwards, an event which brought the matter to a head. This 
was the death of Mr. George Curling Joad, of Oakfield, Wimbledon, 
a lover of Kew, who bequeathed to it his entire collection of Alpine 
and herbaceous plants. The acceptance of the bequest necessitated 
the preparation of a suitable place to grow them on, and a grant 
of £500 was made by Government for the purpose of constructing 
the present Rock Garden. 
The raw material, if one may so term it, that Kew affords for a 
work of this kind is of a most unpromising sort. The surface of the 
D'ff ult’ ground is naturally an almost perfect level, the soil 
„ . , is sandy and poor, and it contains no rock or stone 
Encountered. , . _ , . . , , . 
bigger than a goose s egg. The making of the rockery, 
therefore, was a purely artificial proceeding and, as such, might 
easily have developed, in unskilful hands, into an obtrusive object 
out of all harmony with its surroundings. That nothing of the 
kind has resulted everyone who knows the Rock Garden at Kew will 
2 c 209 
