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Planning Your Garden

On moderate slopes the riser may be of soil left at an angle and turfed. There is something quite unconventional in such steps as illustrated in the second figure.

When the slope is moderate, but long, it is well to break the line of steps into two or more flights, as a concession to appearances.

When the difference of level is small, a good effect will result from spreading the steps in one of the ways shown in Fig. 39.

I have avoided reference to architectural features associated with steps, as, for instance, side and wing walls, pillars, and caps. These, if introduced into a small garden, should be unpretentious, and as far as possible designed to accord with the architecture of the house. If capped with flat stones the pillars may carry vases with good effect, always provided the latter are chosen with taste and a sense of proportion and fitness for their surroundings.

The Rock Garden

THERE is no feature in the modern small garden so badly contrived as the rock garden, or "rockery," as it has come to be called. It is too often but a formless heap of stone rubbish or clinkers in which a few sickly ferns struggle for existence. A rock garden need not be large to be interesting, but it must be properly constructed and placed where the sun can reach it. To the real flower-lover the rock garden is a delight. There is no corner of his domain which yields more interest. It is a garden within a garden, a place where nature has all her own way, rewarding him with quaint and beautiful flowers and varied foliage from early spring to winter frosts. It is well to understand the scope and purpose of the rock garden, a thing all too often overlooked. The common plan of heaping together a mass of stone and mineral curiosities into a grotto like structure, and sprinkling the whole with soil, is the outcome of a misunderstanding of first principles. Let us look into the matter closely, and see just why our alpine plants should be associated with such apparently uncongenial material as stone masses. The answer is clear, if we inquire as to the character of their native habitat.