WHAT TO PLANT 31 



dire, will find an honoured place, and it is also very 

 desirable to plant ivy, periwinkle, and some few 

 other things that will clothe and beautify, even 

 through the dreariest days of winter. The ivies 

 planted will advantageously be of the various finer- 

 leaved varieties. Such essentially garden flowers 

 as pelargoniums are out of place entirely, as the 

 aim is to reproduce some little reminiscence of the 

 charms of some rocky dell or mountain slope. A 

 plant in a rock-garden does not thence become a 

 rock-garden plant. Some will plant with Alpines ; 

 some prefer to confine their attention to British 

 species. Some will spend lavishly in stocking their 

 gardens ; while others, and the wiser we think, will 

 only nurture such as they have themselves collected, 

 or at most have received at the hands of friends, so 

 that everything carries with it a pleasant fund of 

 association. One need not in hobby-driving think 

 overmuch of the curb. 1 While in our own garden 

 we have some of the commonest English plants 

 weeds, in fact, in the language of Philistia, and 



1 We once overheard two disputants. The woman had 

 said something that the man evidently did not think was 

 right, and he, with merciless logic, brought up point after 

 point, and then triumphantly summed up with " So how do 

 you fit that in?" " Oh," she merely replied, "I don't fit 

 it in ! " What more could be said ? The rock-gardenist 

 may claim a similar licence, and decline in his planting 

 to be cooped up within too rigid barriers of logic or any- 

 thing else. 



