434 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
tasteful ingenuity is not wanting, surprising effects may be 
produced in a small space. Caves and grottoes, where ferns 
and mosses would thrive admirably with the gentle drip 
from the roof, might be made of the overarching rocks ar- 
ranged so as to appear like small natural caverns. Let the 
exterior be partially planted with low shrubs and climbing 
plants, as the wild Clematis, and the effect of such bits of 
landscape could not but be agreeable in secluded portions of 
the grounds. 
In many parts of the country, the secondary blue limestone 
abounds, which, in the small masses found loose in the woods, 
covered with mosses and ferns, affords the very finest material 
for artificial rockwork.* 
After all, much the safest way is never to introduce rock- 
work of any description, unless we feel certain that it will 
have a good effect. When a place is naturally picturesque, 
and abounds here and there with rocky banks, etc., little 
should be done but to heighten and aid the expressions of 
these, if they are wanting in spirit, by adding something 
more ; or softening and giving elegance to the expression, 
if too wild, by planting the same with beautiful shrubs and 
climbers. On a tame sandy level, where rocks of any kind 
are unknown, their introduction in rockworks, nine times in 
ten, is more likely to give rise to emotions of the ridiculous, 
than those of the sublime or picturesque. 
* Our readers may see an engraving and description of a superb extravaganza 
in rockwork in a late number of Loudon’s Gardener’s Magazine. Lady Broughton, 
of Hoole House, Chester, England, has succeeded in forming, round a natural 
valley, an imitation of the hills, glaciers, and scenery of a passage in Switzerland. 
The whole is done in rockwork, the snow-covered summits being represented 
in white spar. The appropriate plants, trees, and shrubs on a small scale, are 
introduced, and the illusion, to a spectator standing in the valley surrounded by 
these glaciers, is said to be wonderfully striking and complete. 
