My Rock Garden 



live among its stems have not been disturbed for certainly 

 sixteen years, and have done much seeding and rearrange- 

 ment on their own account in that period. So all the 

 credit I can claim is for having wit enough to leave it 

 alone. To the left of the old summer-house lies the oldest 

 bank of the rock garden. It is hard to deal with now, for 

 though many portions are rather exhausted and need re- 

 modelling, it contains many good old specimen plants on 

 it that it would be sacrilege to interfere with ; a large 

 Cytisus cinereus is one, and now is one mass of the most 

 dazzlingly clear yellow that the garden yields in the whole 

 season. A large bush of Rosa indica, the real crimson 

 form, known as Miss Lowe's from her beautiful drawing 

 of it, given me by Dr. Lowe, is opening its first flowers, and 

 will, all being well, continue to do so until close on Christ- 

 mas. It is the parent of the Monthly Roses ; its flowers 

 are single and purest crimson. Olearia virgata, var. lineata, 

 above it is a wonderfully light bush with its wand- 

 like growth and tiny, linear leaves, very unlike any other 

 Olearia in habit. It bears dull little flowers like those of 

 Groundsel, only white instead of yellow, but its graceful 

 habit makes it good to look at all the year round. Large 

 bushes of Rosa rubrifolia and sericea crown the top, and 

 going up the main steps we come to a flat hollow filled 

 with peat that I sometimes flatter by calling a bog. 

 Sanguinaria and Podophyllum, Caltha radicans, Andromeda 

 polifolia, Trilliums and other peat-loving things live here, 

 and the fern Hypolepis millefolium runs about all through 

 it. I started Saxifraga peltata in one corner, and it wanted 

 to walk over everybody with its enormous caterpillars of 

 273 S 



