ROCK GARDENS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1062, 28 August 1930, Page 5

ROCK GARDENS

TALK AT LYCEUM CLUB “My experience of rock gardens in England and Auckland" was the subject of an address given by Mr. Mills, formerly of Kew Gardens, England, to the members of the Lyceum Club on Tuesday morning.

Some people had the idea that rocks were essential to a rock garden, said Mr. Mills, but that was not so. They were an asset. The first essential was soil and the second a definite design. 110 instanced Kew rock grarders, which were formed from perfectly llat land to typify a river course.

For the formation of a rock garden lie advised three parts loam, one part leaf soil, one part sand and three parts of metal chips. This would give the consistency of the hillside, where the buried stone is of much more value than the visible stone in that it gave a secure hold to the roots of the tiny rock plants. Mr. Mills said that rock gardening was a phase of horticulture that stood entirely on its own, and the successful gardener must have an intimate knowledge of every plant grown within it. Rock plants did not require a rich soil, and to those desirous of making a garden his advice was first to deline some particular phase of nature, then to form the foundation

and to till it with a gritty compact, and by means of pockets to give each plant the soil and environment nature had decreed for it. Among plants suitable for New Zealand rockeries he mentioned the Queen of Saxafraga (which should he planted in limestone with very little soil), Saint Paula ionantha, primula malaeoides, acantholeynon, a.rmeria (thrifts)-, anemone pulsitilla, with (ho judicious planting of dwarf conifers and dwarf Chinese rhododendrons up the sides. The rock garden, he said, besides being the museum of the garden. should have the impressive appearance of the Alps.