30 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



all. If we have a portion of our garden made up 

 of light sandy soil, there our heather should do 

 well ; if we have another portion consisting of 

 stiffish clay, there our primroses will specially 

 prosper. While we must admit the fact that we 

 cannot be equally successful in all directions, we 

 may at least approach that ideal in another direction 

 by arranging that some of our rock-garden shall 

 be overshadowed by trees, a noble mountain-ash 

 richly laden in Autumn with multitudinous clusters 

 of scarlet berries, a fairy birch that in Spring is 

 a mass of graceful pendulous catkins, fulfilling this 

 function to admiration in our own garden, while 

 other parts have the full strength of the sunshine 

 upon them. 



Many persons fall into the grievous error of 

 under-planting, being so enamoured of their stone- 

 heap that they cannot bear to see it getting grown 

 over. But this is a heresy ; for, beautiful as the 

 stones alone may be, they are infinitely more beau- 

 tiful when peeping out from amidst the wreathing 

 over of rich masses of foliage. " Beauty unadorned " 

 is not " adorned the most " in this particular case. 



What the rock-garden should be planted with is a 

 very wide subject. Ferns, of course, cela va sans 



abnormal length and bulk, but yielded no blossom at all. The 

 error is akin to that of the patient who, when ordered to take 

 recurring doses of a teaspoonful takes two teaspoonfuls 

 instead, so as to get better as fast again. 



