Special Features 209 



small trailing shrubs, etc. A yew hedge about five feet high 

 (11) encloses the garden at the east and west sides, and on 

 the south (12) is a sweetbrier hedge, with standard roses 

 in it at regular intervals. 



5. Rockeries and Fern Gardens. — Persons who have a 

 fancy for a rock or fern garden will do well to keep it some- 

 where in the background and not in sight from the windows of 

 the house or the principal parts of the lawn. It may be made 

 very interesting if thus secluded, and may be approached from 

 the main walk of the garden through a rustic arch mantled 

 with climbers or in some similar and convenient manner. 

 Masses of rockery may even be placed fronting the chief line 

 of walk, at some distance from the house, where a good dense 

 screen of planting can be interposed between them and the 

 lawn, or where they can be made to look as if they were 

 naturally cropping out of a bank. Or they may be employed 

 as a sort of rustic basement to some outbuilding. To grow 

 ferns upon them, the shade of trees or some other objects 

 will be indispensable; but many rock plants prefer an open 

 sunny situation, so that rockeries should not. be entirely 

 shaded. If accompanied with a small pool of water having 

 a broken rocky margin, a few of the rarer aquatics and sedgy 

 plants may be grown, and goldfish can be kept. The mois- 

 ture exhaled from such a piece of water would be very bene- 

 ficial to many rock plants, and the jutting pieces of stone or 

 overhanging shrubs would afford shelter, privacy, and shade 

 to the fish. Where a clear running stream can be turned 

 through a rockery and be expanded into a pool, trout may 

 also be preserved in the latter; and if there be water enough 

 to dash down a minature rocky ravine in the shape of a 

 cascade, another characteristic accessory will be added. Of 

 course it will be readily understood that considerable room 

 will be required to develop any such ambitious plan. If such 



