272 Landscape Gardening 



then, they should be grown principally in masses, so that 

 proper soil can be supplied to them, and should be furnished 

 with about one-third or one-half of good peat or leaf mold, 

 in a rather shady situation. 



Where proper peat cannot be procured for rhododendrons, 

 leaf mold will be the best substitute for it. And even if 

 this should not be attainable, turfy loam, taken from an old 

 pasture, may suffice, or well-rotted stable manure may be 

 freely used in conjunction with common soil. Any earth 

 that is naturally of a chalky kind or that contains much lime 

 will be particularly unfavorable to rhododendrons. 



6. Circumventing the Gardener. — One of the greatest 

 practical difficulties with which the artist in landscape has 

 to contend is dealing with the picturesque. Smoothness and 

 regularity of treatment are so thoroughly what an ordinary 

 gardener is accustomed to, that it requires no small effort to 

 enlighten him as to the mode of achieving anything really 

 beautiful in the way of curved Hues and undulations. But 

 when ruggedness and an appearance of rude naturalness are 

 sought it is indeed hard to obtain a practical operator. In 

 this case, soil has often to be thrown down in rough heaps 

 without smoothing, leveling, or exhibiting the marks of 

 any tool; masses of soil or rock have to be wrenched away 

 fr«m the face of a bank; stones or roots have to be thrown 

 down as irregularly and wildly as possible; tufts of rugged 

 vegetation or scrambling shrubs must be left where these 

 exist; all roundness or curvatures have to be avoided; and 

 everything that is angular and broken striven after. Rocks 

 when they are inserted require to be blended with the ground 

 in the neighborhood by means of a few scattered groups or 

 single stones, only partially filling up the interstices among 

 them with soil so as to preserve a rugged surface and not 

 providing for covering the stones too much. 



