The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Rockweler Rockgardens

Constructing The Rock Garden

HAVING determined in a general way the type of rock garden to be attempted, and selected the spot which, everything considered, seems to be the most suitable for its location, we come to the actual construction of the garden.

It is here that a rock garden differs from all others; and here also that it is imperative to make haste slowly. For a rock garden, once established, cannot be changed or even altered without practically undoing everything which has been done. It is an easy matter to shift your perennials when their arrangement does not fully satisfy you. Plantings of shrubs may be changed; even individual evergreens may be moved without much trouble. But the time to make alterations in your rock garden is while you are building it.

MAKING THE PLAN

In making a hardy border, a rose garden, or a bulb garden, it is simple and practical to draw up a fairly definite plan of the planting scheme in advance. Dimensions and even the location of individual varieties may easily be indicated. Any intelligent gardener can take such a plan and from it construct the garden, just as it is wanted.

In making a rock garden no such definite procedure is possible. It must be shaped and molded as the work progresses.If you want it to be your rock garden, you must personally supervise the work—better still, do much of it with your own hands. The alternative is to hand the job over to some one who is familiar with rock-garden building and leave the execution to him. But at your peril entrust it to any one who is unfamiliar with this kind of work!

The Ground Plan. It is, however, both feasible and desirable to make a ground plan of the projected rock garden, showing over-all dimensions, the location of paths, and possibly of the sections to be devoted to different classes of rock plants; and indicating also the extent and position of the background planting or setting.