ROCK GARDENING 69 



evergreen ground covers, in which America is very rich. The 

 finest are partridge-berry and wintergreen, because these have red 

 berries that last all winter. Think of getting one thousand plants 

 of partridge-berry for only fifteen dollars ! I know one collector 

 who sends them in regular sods, two or three feet square, each sod 

 counting as perhaps a dozen plants. Galax leaves are also a joy 

 in winter, being green in the shade and bronze in the sun. A 

 thousand galax cost forty dollars or less. Prince's pine costs 

 about twenty dollars; Labrador tea only ten dollars. I wish 

 some one would try Hypericum Buckleyi, which is said to be 

 a fine ground cover in shade, and has yellow flowers in summer. 

 It is quite proper to use foreign flowers in wild gardening, provided 

 they look like wild flowers and multiply with little or no care after 

 becoming established. But it is not appropriate to use flowers 

 that have been greatly improved by man, such as large pansies, or 

 anything that suggests ceaseless care and expense. For instance, 

 wallflowers and snapdragons are perennial in England, but here 

 they cannot be relied upon to last over the winter. Therefore they 

 belong in the garden, not the wild garden. The expense of raising 

 flowers every year from seed is not appropriate to wild or rocky 

 land, even if a person can afford it. But annuals that "self-sow" 



are welcome. 



-'" : 



A thousand plants may seem a great quantity to order but 

 two hundred and fifty is not, and two hundred and fifty can 

 usually be had at the rate per thousand, which is a saving of 

 seventeen per cent, over the rate per hundred. We must have 

 some unit, and some very interesting points come out when 

 you study what is actually available by the thousand. I do not 

 approve of any style of wild gardening in which the plants cost 

 more than five cents each, even if a person can afford it. For the 



