WATERING ROCK GARDENS

Evening Star, Issue 22526, 19 December 1936, Page 23

WATERING ROCK GARDENS

Watering is always something of a problem in the rock garden. Much has been said -and written against overhead watering, both on the ground that it tends to harden the soil, so preventing proper aeration, and also because it is assumed to be unnatural, most alpines obtaining their supplies of water from underground when growing in their native mountains. On purely theoretical grounds there is much to be said for both these arguments, but it must be confessed that in practice they prove less convincing. The large rock gardens at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, are almost entirely watered from above, permanent pipes being laid for this purpose and fitted with sprinklers at regular intervals. Results have been surprisingly satisfactory, and ■suggest that overhead watering, at least during dry spells, is infinitely better than no watering at all. But in the case of a few choice plants, and particularly those with woolly foli-

age, it is undoubtedly, tetter to adopt' some means of watering from below. For. this purpose a thoroughly prat* tical scheme consists of burying a few drain pipes vertically in the soil near the plants to be watered. These pipes are filled with water once pr twice daily, so that the moisture may’ soak into the soil and rise from below by capillary attraction or be found by. the plant roots.—Auckland ‘ Herald.’