CHAPTER XIX 

 FERNS IN THE ROCK GARDEN 



HAPPILY for the rock garden and its adjacent 

 parts there is a wealth of beauty, diversity of 

 form and elegance in the Fern tribe to be found 

 nowhere else in the vegetable world. The plants were 

 obviously intended to attract by their many graces, 

 and whether in the freshness of their spring or early 

 summer toilet or that of maturer autumn days, they 

 rarely fail to play their part. Then, too, there are 

 Ferns to suit all circumstances, giants of the bog like 

 the Royal Fern (Osmunda) that attain to six feet or 

 eight feet high, and miniatures like the Wall-Rue 

 (Asplenium ruta-muraria) of but an inch or two high, 

 that delight in the dry crevices of a wall and to which 

 soil would appear abhorrent. Twixt these extremes, 

 whether of stature, likes and dislikes, are many species 

 and varieties all alike well suited. It is from out of 

 this greater host that the cool, sequestered places of 

 the rock garden may be ornamented and beautified; 

 that the moist or dripping cave may have its quota of 

 living things, or that the drier places may receive 

 their rightful share. 



Culturally, it would appear that moisture or dryness 

 plays a more important part than soil, while position 

 must be relegated to third place. For example, to the 

 true bog-loving Ferns, Osmunda and Struthiopteris, 

 moisture is a first essential, and being present the soil 

 may be of a leafy nature or strong loam. On the 

 other hand, to such as the Parsley Fern, Scaly Fern, or 

 Wall-Rue, dryness is important. The commoner sorts. 

 Hart's Tongue andFilix-mas, succeed almost anywhere, 

 though assumingtheir greater luxuriance in loamy soils 



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