ROCKERY AND ALPINE GARDEN. 
I know a bank, whereon the wild thyme blows, 
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, 
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, 
With sweet musk roses, and with eglantine. 
Shakespeare. 
A GOOD deal has been said on the subject of rockeries in the preceding 
chapter, but as the remarks there applied wholly to ferns, it is 
necessary to say something regarding their construction for the culture of 
alpine plants. No garden, however large or small its area, can be said to be 
complete without some provision for growing this most interesting and 
beautiful class of plants which hail from the mountain side, and make such a 
particularly charming display in the spring and summer months. We must, 
therefore, even at the risk of repetition, devote another chapter to the subject 
so far as it applies to these. 
What is a rockery ? In too many instances, alas! it is a mere heap of 
deftly and mathematically arranged stones with no pretensions to beauty, 
and with no regard to its special fitness for the culture of plants. And then, 
again, how frequently do we not see this sense of utter unfitness aggravated 
by a coating of whitewash applied to the exterior of the material used in its 
construction ? And to go a little further, one may often come across rows of 
neatly-arranged oyster shells, bottle ends, and a hundred and one other 
positively ugly combinations. These are not rockeries, they are utterly un¬ 
worthy of the name; they are mere toy arrangements, which no one with any 
due appreciation of the beautiful in nature would ever dream of admitting into 
