The Wild Garden 85 



If other rock-loving plants delight him, he will place pockets 

 of rich, light loam between the crevices of boulders and lesser 

 stones to nourish happy colonies of columbine, bloodroot, true and 

 false Solomon's seals, Pinxter flower, hawkweed, shooting star, 

 Virginia cowslip, blue bells, daphne, violets, St. John's wort, wild 

 geranium, and blue phlox among the foreign saxifrages, rock- 

 cresses and other Alpine plants, without which was a rock garden 

 ever complete ? 



Only the enthusiast with a deeper pocket than any among 

 his rocks can buy rhododendrons by the freight-car load, though 

 the poor nature lover may know as well as he their delightful 

 possibilities when lavishly planted. Grown in bold masses, 

 under trees along an entrance drive or beside a brook or on the 

 bank of a small lake, their beauty is majestic. Laurel may be 

 grouped in the foreground at their feet, tall auratum, superbum 

 and Canada lilies may shoot upward from their midst, or their 

 heavy dark foliage may serve as a background in damp situations 

 for the incomparable red of the cardinal flower or the stately form 

 of Japanese iris. With leaves as decorative as a rubber plant's 

 and blossoms that form a bouquet complete in itself, the rhodo- 

 dendron, either in the wild garden or in the formal garden, reigns 

 supreme among evergreen plants. 



But this is not said to discourage the use of many other native 

 shrubs of varied loveliness. What a wealth of beauty exists in 

 the viburnum tribe alone in the high bush cranberry and arrow 

 wood whose broad white panicles are only less attractive than 

 their bright fruit! How impoverished should we be without 

 the dogwoods, without the shad bush, the Judas tree, the sumachs, 

 the glossy leaved, blue-berried mahonia, and the bright red- 

 berried holly! The fragrant button ball, the creamy cups of 



