FLOWERS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16256, 5 July 1918, Page 4

FLOWERS.

Making a Rockery.—No better way of passing one's well-deserved respite from daily work can be found than in the garden, and many people who work indoors all day take a keen interest in horticulture. To those who care for in-

teresting gardening, wo suggest the making of a rockery. The first thing to do is to select the site, plan the boundaries, and form some idea as to the stylo. However small your garden, and though yon must grow - more vegetables than usual in -war time, you can still hare the rockery. Some rock plants lore sunlight, others are shade lovers, so the site can either be a sunny one or in the shade. The ground ought to be dug one spade deep, for the purpose of drainage in a wet garden, and to secure the rising of moisture out of the ground in a dry one. The deeper you dig, the more moisture will continually be rising to support the roots of your plants in summer time. The surface or the soil around the plants has to be kept powdery, though, lest the moisture m the ground be drawn up too rapidly by the sunshine. A fine surfqee "answers the purpose of mulching, ana some gardeners helieve that the frequent surface stirrings necessary to obtaining this.fine tilth are healthier than grass or manure mulches. Upon this patch of worked earth arrange a shapely pile of 6oil. _ The rockery can be oval, oblong, circular, or ragged, but should altrays have irregular edges. The top, which can be flat, or, as we admire, sunken, should not bo too high. The soil could bo new loam, with some decayed horse manure mixed with it. Being war time, and the Government asking the people to invest with them what money can be spared, garden soil can be used, and, where heavy, without the manure. "Where the soil removed for the rockery is heavy, a good layer of lime upon the mound will unlock sufficient food for one year's bloom. Light soil is deficient in nutriment, however, and must be enriched with natural or artificial manure—soot, if vou like.

The parts of the Tockory can be sizeable stone. Limestone and sandstone are undoubtedly the finest stones for rock-work. If one has large pieces of either he can hardly go wrong. But in many districts they are hard to get, and a fow big lumps we must have unless the rockery is to look somewhat potteiing for the initial twelvemonth. Smaller chunks are come by more easilv at times; and a heap of these laid on a garden bed and then deluged with cement and water, and covered "with a sack and allowed to set for a few days, will then come away from the soil, and may be used more or less effectively as a substitute for real stone. Clinkers, pebbles, and so on can be worked upon similar lines, and so treated look much better (or less ugly) than when used singly.

The older the rockery the less does the precise character of the stone affect its heautv, though the rockery boasting some handsome .lime or sandstone blocks will always bo more charming than the makeshift, partly because of the lovely contrasts it will afford at the outset, an/1 partly by reason of the rapidity and ease and delicate leaf-tracery with which certain classes of plants will clothe it in time. '

The putting together of the parts consists mainly in covering the shaped mound with the blocks; these should not be all of the same size. There must be nothing regular about a rockery. Nature does not arrange her scones in an orderly manner. Indeed, some of the prettiest have for a foundation the semblance of a gigantic rock blown up by dynamite. A second point in putting together the parts is to tip some of thp stones so that the rain runs into the gaps of soil. Again, do not make these spots for the plants of anything like a uniform size. In fact, everything must be arranged carefully carelcssly. A rockery made on these lines is one of the features of he garden. Some plants suitable for a rockery are aquilegias, aubretias, arabis, alyssum, houchera, geum, forget-me-nots, alpine poppy, saxifrages, stonecrops (sedums), statill (sea lavender), silene acaulis, campanula carpatica, hardy cyclamen, pinks,'dianthus, wallflowers, sweet Williams, linaria, anemone alpina, helianthemum (sun-rose), coloured primroses and polyanthus, auriculas and several of the heaths. With a small collection made out of this list the rockery will be a joy for a long time.