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  MAKING A
  ROCK GARDEN




  THE
  HOUSE & GARDEN
  MAKING
  BOOKS


It is the intention of the publishers to make this series of little
volumes, of which _Making a Rock Garden_ is one, a complete library of
authoritative and well illustrated handbooks dealing with the activities
of the home-maker and amateur gardener. Text, pictures and diagrams
will, in each respective book, aim to make perfectly clear the
possibility of having, and the means of having, some of the more
important features of a modern country or suburban home. Among the
titles already issued or planned for early publication are the
following: _Making a Rose Garden_; _Making a Lawn_; _Making a Tennis
Court_; _Making a Fireplace_; _Making Paths and Driveways_; _Making a
Poultry House_; _Making a Garden with Hotbed and Coldframe_; _Making
Built-in Bookcases, Shelves and Seats_; _Making a Garden to Bloom This
Year_; _Making a Water Garden_; _Making a Garden of Perennials_; _Making
the Grounds Attractive with Shrubbery_; _Making a Naturalized Bulb
Garden_; with others to be announced later.


[Illustration: A nearly buried boulder is easily converted into a
beautiful little rock garden. Fill in depressions with soil and plant
there and around the edges of the boulder _Phlox subulata_, sedum,
arabis, etc.]




  MAKING A
  ROCK GARDEN

  By H. S. ADAMS

  [Decoration]

  NEW YORK
  McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY
  1912

  COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
  MCBRIDE, NAST & CO.

  Published May, 1912




CONTENTS

                                                    PAGE

  THE ROCK GARDEN                                      1

  THE CHOICE OF A SITE                                 6

  THE WORK OF CONSTRUCTION                            13

  PLANTING THE GARDEN                                 24

  PLANTS FOR A ROCK GARDEN                            32

  THE WALL GARDEN                                     45

  WATER AND BOG GARDENS                               50




THE ILLUSTRATIONS

  AN OUTCROPPING BOULDER CONVERTED         _Frontispiece_
    INTO A ROCK GARDEN
                                                  FACING
                                                    PAGE

  A FLIGHT OF STEPS THROUGH ROCK WORK                  8

  AN EXAMPLE OF GOOD ROCK GARDENING                   16

  A SMALL BIT OF ROCK WORK WHERE TWO PATHS DIVERGE    26

  FOAM FLOWER AND ONE OF THE SMALLER FERNS            34

  THE ROCK GARDEN BUILT ALONG A MAIN CURVING PATH     42

  A WALL GARDEN PLANTED IN COLONIES                   46

  A FOUNTAIN IN A WALL GARDEN                         50




     MAKING A
  ROCK GARDEN




Making a Rock Garden

THE ROCK GARDEN


In Europe, particularly in England, the rock garden is an established
institution with a distinct following. The English works on the subject
alone form a considerable bibliography.

On this side of the Atlantic, the rock garden is so little understood
that it is an almost unconsidered factor in the beautifying of the home
grounds. There are a few notable rock gardens in this country, all on
large estates, and in more instances some excellent work has been done
on a smaller and less complicated scale either by actual creation or by
taking advantage of natural opportunities. But for the most part
America has confined its rock garden vision principally to the so-called
"rockery."

Now a rockery, with all the good intentions lying behind it, is not a
rock garden. It is no more a rock garden than a line of cedars planted
in an exact circle would be a wood. A rockery is generally a lot of
stones stuck in a pile of soil or, worse yet, a circular array of stones
filled in with soil.

A rock garden, above all else, is not artificial; at least, so far as
appearance goes. It is a garden with rocks. The rocks may be few or
many, they may have been disposed by nature or the hand of man; but
always the effect is naturalistic, if not actually natural. The rock
garden's one and only creed is nature.

Rock gardens are of so many legitimate--in other words, natural--types,
that there is not the slightest excuse for a rockery. Even that
commonest of excuses, finding a use for stray stones, falls to the
ground. Any close observer of nature is familiar with these types. The
natural rock gardens range from the patches of alpine plants above the
timber line in high mountains down the lower <DW72>s and through defiles
to fields on or near sea level. Not infrequently they come down to the
very sea, while sweet waters commonly define and, what is better, are
now and then incorporated in, them--here a pool, there a brook. The bog,
too, the heath and the desert, they take unto themselves, though perhaps
only the nearer edge. And does man, by ponderous effort, raise up
massive masonry in orderly fashion; one day disorder comes and nature
makes things look natural by another kind of rock garden. Rome's
Coliseum and the ruins of Kenilworth Castle are only two of the
unnumbered examples of this.

Here, in a nutshell, are not only the natural variations of the rock
garden, but the inspiration. No rock garden worthy of the name has ever
been created by man that did not depend upon a study of those that
nature has given the world in prodigal abundance. There were the why and
the how of it all, and man simply saw and made use of his observations.

The advantages of a rock garden are, primarily, an element of
picturesqueness that nothing else can provide, and the possession of a
place in which can be grown some of the loveliest flowers on earth that,
if they flourish at all, will never do as well in the ordinary garden as
in conditions more or less approximating their natural habitat. Also it may
be made a pleasance of extraordinary attractiveness. Occasionally--and
here is one of the most important things to be learned about the rock
garden--it is the veritable key to the garden situation; there are small
places where no other kind is worth while, if indeed it is possible.




THE CHOICE OF A SITE


The best site for a rock garden is where it ought to be. That is a sad
truth, for it eliminates some homes from the game; but useless waste of
time will be saved if this is recognized at the outset. First cast your
eye about and see if you have a spot where a rock garden would look as
if it belonged there; that is the supreme test. If one does not seem to
belong there, give up the idea philosophically and take it out in
enjoying the rock gardens of other people.

As a rule a rock garden should not be near the house; it is something
savoring of the wild that does not fit in with most architecture.
Exceptions are when the house is on a rocky site that makes such
planting desirable, if not imperative, and a <DW72> from the rear or one
side of a house that seems decided enough to permit of a sharp break in
the general landscape treatment. Save in these circumstances, it is
better that it should not be in sight of the house. This is not so hard
as it sounds; even on a small place, the spot is easily concealed by a
planting of shrubbery.

Nor should the rock garden, any more than the rockery, be in the lawn
unless it is depressed and therefore out of sight, or mainly so, from
the level. The depression may be a natural or an artificial one, it may
be a brook with high banks or it may be a sunken pathway. The edge of a
lawn is better, a corner of it is better yet, and preferable to either
is a bank sloping down from it. The bank on either side of steps
leading from one lawn level to another is also a possibility to be
considered.

Trees need not be altogether avoided; sometimes they are essential to
the pictorial effect. It is not well, however, to place a rock garden
near very large trees. The drip is bad, especially for alpines, and the
greedy roots not only rob the plants of nourishment but are very apt to
dislocate the stones.

Somewhere just outside the real garden is the best place; then it is
only a step from one little world into another that is altogether
different. If the rock garden leads to a bit of wood, either directly or
through a wild garden, there will be all the more to rejoice over. The
more irregularity the site has, or suggests, the better; a rock garden
not only should have no straight lines, but it is not well that all of
it should be comprehended in a single view