WHAT IS A ROCKERY? 223 



with a rockery, or a miniature ravine can be created with rock 

 gardens forming the slopes. In connection with a pool for aquatics 

 a rock garden can be so constructed as to give the pool a harmonious 

 background or setting. Indeed, there are all kinds of possibilities, 

 nor need the rock garden be planted strictly with dwarf-growing 

 stock or such as is of doubtful hardiness. 



The main thing to my mind is to create a pleasing effect. If 

 the rockery or rock garden doesn't add to the beauty of a place, it 

 is worse than useless. You don't have to confine yourself entirely 

 to perennials in planting it. Nepeta or Glechoma variegata, Pen- 

 nisetum longistylum, Thunbergia, Lobelia, Mesembryanthemum, 

 Guphea, Santolina, Alternanthera, traiUng Lantana, Goleus, small 

 single-flowering Petunias, Begonias, double Alyssum, dwarf Ager- 

 atum — all these are just a few of the so-called greenhouse materials 

 that are suitable for such a planting. 



A Practical Planting Suggestion 



I realize that, in the opinion of an expert, such stock would 

 hardly suit and that there are many other so-called rockery plants 

 that should be used instead. On the other hand, one could arrange 

 a raised bed of irregular outline with boulders or small rocks and 

 make a wonderful display with nothing but annuals and bedding 

 stock. What is there wrong, for instance, about a rock with its 

 weather beaten, pointed top sticking out of the ground fifteen inches 

 or so, and some plants at its base or sides ? There could be a single 

 plant of Rosy Morn Petunia, in the foreground a plant of Ageratum 

 Fraserii, a double Alyssum, a httle Thunbergia, and variegated 

 Glechoma, and a background consisting of Pennisetum or a Grevillea 

 robusta behind the Petunia. 



Too artificial compared with real hardy rock plants? Maybe, 

 but no Petunia, Alyssum, Ageratum, or even Pennisetum will show 

 off as well as when displayed as a single specimen and planted just 

 that way. To crowd things into a solid formal bed or border is all 

 right if you want a mass effect, but to appreciate the full beauty of 

 the plants themselves, you must give them a chance for individual 

 development, and this can best be done when they are planted in a 

 rock garden. It isn't likely that the average florist wiU be caUed 

 upon to lay out rock gardens on a large scale, nor expected to draw 

 plans and furnish lists of a hundred odd varieties of suitable plants. 

 But he will be caUed upon at times to do such work on a small scale, 

 and therefore should have some knowledge of what it means. No 

 book or lengthy article ever written on rock gardening will make it 

 possible for the beginner to carry out a job as well as one who has 

 had actual experience, but any florist who can appreciate beauty in 



