ROCK-WORK, ROOT-WORK, ETC. 
157 
Both root-work and rock-work, when well furnished with a 
good selection of the more beautiful woodland and alpine plants, 
are particularly interesting to the botanist; and though, as already 
said, they are rather rude features for the place, their utility jus¬ 
tifies their admission; for besides the well-prepared soil in which 
they, the plants, grow, it is an advantage to see them accom¬ 
panied as they are seen in nature. 
A pool or basin of pure water for aquatic plants is always 
a pleasing and useful appendage in a flower-garden. The plants 
should be placed in pots, and sunk more or less under the surface 
of the water, according to their natural habits. Feeding and 
waste pipes are usually adapted to such basins, for the sake of 
renewing the water occasionally ; and they form a convenient 
receptacle for a few gold and silver fish. These basins are usually 
formed by brick-work, if the natural soil be not sufficiently reten¬ 
tive of water, and the sides have a curb of hewn stone as a finish. 
Sometimes a jet d'eau occupies the centre, which is a pleasing 
ornament when there is a command of water. 
Rustic ornaments are admitted into flower-gardens as fanciful 
stations for plants. A deformed stump of a tree, hollowed out at 
top to receive a little earth, is planted with verbenas or other 
dwarf creeping or trailing plants. Other rough forms, as vases, 
cenotaphs, baskets, &c. are introduced to give variety; and there 
is now a great choice of potter’s ware ornaments, suitable for 
gardens, which are at once both elegant and cheap. 
Such objects in a garden show that the owner has some share of 
taste, which if it be exercised with propriety enhances the beauty 
of a well-kept garden ; and though the taste for sculptured orna¬ 
ments in flower-gardens, once so fashionable in Italy and France, 
is now almost extinct, there are signs of a return to the old mode 
of enriching garden scenery, as several new ones in this style, 
on rather a large scale, are now in course of completion in this 
country. 
If such gardens be arranged with good taste, avoiding all 
extravagance of design and irrationality of execution, very inte¬ 
resting scenery may be created by the combination of architecture 
and sculpture with vegetation and flowers in artistical order. 
The plants should be the rarest and most beautiful of their kinds, 
and the artificial embellishments should be chastely classical in 
form, and characteristically interesting. 
