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Rustic Adornments. 
necessarily involves great expense ; also that alpine plants of all others are 
most difficult to grow near towns, and most exacting in their demands for 
their mountain air and normal altitude. This is really not so, although it 
does involve plenty of work, a certain amount of care and knowledge, and 
some judgment as to how to proceed. Many a square, flat, uninviting, and 
inartistic garden could be made a thing of beauty and a joy for, at any rate, a 
considerable time, if the owner would only leave the beaten track ; destroy 
the straightness of his paths, break up his level, cover the nakedness of his 
wall or fence, and judiciously hide his dust-bin—that chronic ornament of 
nearly all suburban gardens. 
Before we “ lay out ” the garden we must have the rock to do it with, as, of 
course, we are really dealing with what is usually known as a rockwork, only 
on a somewhat different scale. The old idea of a rockwork was usually a 
heap of earth or rubbish, or both, generally put in a corner most unsuited to 
it, and studded over with “burrs,” clinker, slag, or some such material, and 
ornamented with bits of “ spar,” shells, and such like incongruous objects. 
In this mound a few sickly ferns, creeping jenny, &c., lived a short life, until 
cold, damp, slugs, and absence of sun put an end to their existence. 
The question of rock is such a wide one that it must be dealt with 
according to the locality in which the alpine garden is proposed to be 
constructed. For example, in many parts of Scotland, Cornwall, and the 
Channel Islands, granites and other igneous rocks are readily obtained, and 
are excellent for our purpose. In parts of Wales shales and slates can be 
utilized. In the North of England the limestones and sandstones of the 
carboniferous rocks yield suitable material at one’s door, whilst in the South 
and West of England the similar rocks of the oolitic strata are capital for the 
purpose. 
But when we come back to our suburban gardens we find rock of any kind 
scarce, chiefly because most of our cities, and notably London, are built on 
large clay basins, for reasons which need not be gone into here. However, 
the fact remains that “ rock ” is very expensive, because scarce on clay areas, 
and hence the “ burrs ” and clinker rockwork of the London villa garden. 
Now, nothing is much worse for plants of any kind than this; you might just 
as well try and make a garden on a Tyneside slag heap (unless a very old 
one, when it might be done). Flints are not injurious, but they are too dense 
for the delicate root fibres of plants to cling to or penetrate, and are only 
useful to build up the terrace to be described later. Trimmings of stone 
