258 COME INTO THE GARDEN 



ing. Do not let this deter from it, however, 

 where natural opportunity is yours ; and do not 

 let the broad garden ideal which is here pre- 

 sented minimize the opportunity that just a 

 single group of rocks, big and little perhaps, may 

 hold for an actual rock garden in miniature. 

 Where such a group rests, naturally deposited 

 or naturally uncovered by the action of the ele- 

 ments, there is the suggestion for something 

 special and delightful of which the gardener 

 should be bold enough to take advantage. For 

 it is not size that makes a rock garden any more 

 than any other type; and though I have said 

 that few small places boast the natural charac- 

 teristics that inspire this treatment, I do not 

 mean that the smallest presentation of the motif 

 shall be disregarded, wherever it may offer. 



The planting of a rock garden is, to a certain 

 extent, always experimental. The plants that 

 haunt such spots are by nature elusive, many of 

 them; and it does not diminish this quality 

 to "raise them in captivity. I do not mean by 

 this that they lack hardiness or strong consti- 

 tutions; they possess both to an unusual de- 

 gree in most cases. But they are all that the 

 word elusive implies — temperamental, captious 

 perhaps; who shall say.^^ To have read Maeter- 

 linck's careful Intelligence of the Flowers sug- 



