126 FRITZ BAHR'S COMMERCIAL FLORICULTURE 



Fig. 40. — ^A View in a Rock Garden. The average florist, even though he does 

 landscape work, isn't often called upon to lay out a rock garden. Yet this can he 

 made a most attractive feature of even the small home grounds. We have a com- 

 plete list of interesting as well as showy plants to select from in making one. (See 



Chapter VII, page 221.) 



that is, by practicing the profession, by doing the actual work with 

 your eyes and mind open. It is only after you have started to do 

 this that books are of value to you and then you cannot read too 

 many good ones — not so much to find out how to do things, as to 

 get the different ideas of efficient men, which will help you to formu- 

 late your own. 



This much is certain: no grounds are ever finished. They are 

 no more done or finished than when new work opens up, and this 

 is especially true of the smaller ones. Large grounds or estates often 

 require many years before they develop into the picture the land- 

 scape artist had in mind when he laid out the place, while on the one- 

 or two-hundred-foot lot the planting usually is done to create an 

 immediate efi'ect. This, to an extent, is a bad feature, yet it is the 

 spirit of the times. An owner wants his home built in a week and 

 will often pay a premium to the contractor who can do it quickest. 

 There are even cases in which the home hasn't a roof on it before 

 the owner is ready to sell and build another one. The planting of 

 the grounds in all such cases doesn't differ much. Big trees, large 

 conifers, specimen shrubs. Lilacs to bloom the first season, anything 

 to create an immediate effect. This usually means planting too 

 close, or using overgrown stock or else in a short time a regular 

 wilderness of what has been planted. Sometimes improper care of 



