June; 1909 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



291 



range of color; on the sun roses or cistuses 

 for large individual blooms; on gentians for 

 blues; on primroses for yellows and crim- 

 sons; on the purple rock cress, or aubrietia, 

 for big carpets of bloom cheaply raised from 

 seed; and on the pinks for fragrance. 



All of these we can grow on a good rockery, 

 but I believe it is folly for us to try to get 

 great landscape or garden effects with any 

 of these plants, save pinks. I am confident 

 that we shall get equally gorgeous effects, 

 but with a different set of plants. And 

 I know we have done wrong in making a big 

 fuss about the few plants which we cannot 

 grow as well as England, instead of trying 

 to see how we can get just as big effects 

 that shall be distinctly American. 



BIG EFFECTS WE CAN HAVE 



One' way in which we can get immense 

 carpets of flowers in ordinary gardens 

 without rocks, as well as on great estates 

 that have plenty of rocky land, is to concen- 

 trate on rock plants that are very easily 

 raised from seed. Here is a list that we 

 can get from our own seedsmen, and these 

 kinds are so easy to grow that most of them 

 will bloom the first year, if started in a 

 frame in March. Practically all can be had 

 cheaply by the ounce and I hope that some 

 of our readers will give them a thorough 

 trial now for next season's bloom. 



Those marked * are the only ones that 

 actually grow upon the Alps, so far as I 

 know, but in the rest of this article I shall 

 pay no attention to such distinctions, because 

 the Alps do not have a monopoly of floral 

 beauty by any means. Indeed, the whole 

 spirit of Alpine gardening is cosmopolitan. 

 The rockery is a beautiful device that 

 enables us to grow plants from Arctic 

 and Antarctic lowlands, from the highest 

 mountains of the tropics and from our own 



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The edging is of white thrift (Armeria). Above 

 is a hardy geranium. The evergreen plant is a 

 dwarf spruce 



Appalachian and Rocky Mountains. And 

 the word "alpine" is now so thoroughly 

 generalized that people no longer begin it 

 with a capital, and if you wish to refer speci- 

 fically to European conditions you must 

 say "the Alps." 



Goldentuft (Alyssum saxatile), 



yellow April-May 



White rock cress (Arabis albida), 



white April-June 



Sweet woodruff (Asperida odorata), 



white May-July 



Snow in summer (Cerastium tomento- 



sum), white May-July 



Garden pinks (Dianthus plumar'ms), 



pink, purple, white . . . May-July 



*Alpine forget-me-not (Myosolis alpes- 



tn's), blue Summer 



*Kenil worth ivy (Linaria Cymbalaria), 



violet All season 



♦Alpine soapwort (Saponaria ocy- 



moides), red-pink All season 



Sedum Maximowiczii, yellow . . . July-Aug. 

 Veronicas, mixed, blue .... Spring to fall 



In fact, the only useful distinction that 

 can be made among alpine plants is between 

 those that are easy to grow and those that 

 are hard to grow. By "hard" I mean those 

 that have to be grown in a rockery, and are, 

 therefore, only for the few who have money 

 and enthusiasm. By "easy" I mean those 

 that anyone can grow in ordinary garden 

 soil without rocks, or with such modest 

 rock work as anyone can afford. 



I have already given the names of forty- 

 six European rock plants which will give us 

 glorious mass effects in any garden, and 

 which are commonly kept in stock by Amer- 

 ican nurserymen. I could easily extend 

 the list to a hundred real English effects 

 that we can transport bodily. But that 

 is of little importance. The great fact 

 is that many of the rock plants most treasured 

 in England are really native to America, 

 and therefore are adapted to our climate 

 beyond the shadow of a doubt. 



No one, so far as I know, has pointed out 

 to what extent English rock gardens are 

 indebted to America and I shall therefore 

 devote the rest of this article to American 

 wild flowers; for no matter how many for- 

 eign alpines may feel at home here, it is 

 obvious that we can never develop an Amer- 

 ican style unless we use some of our own 

 wild flowers on a great scale. 



FAMOUS AMERICAN ROCK PLANTS 



Strictly speaking, the moss pink {Phlox 

 subulata) is about the only American rock 

 plant I know which is commonly cultivated 

 the world over, even in its own country, 

 which is the supreme test. But, here again, 

 it is folly to draw any sharp line between 

 plants that grow wild only on rocks and 

 those which also grow in other situations. 

 For instance, bloodroot will grow any- 

 where, yet it attains its highest beauty, 

 I think, on rocks. The English think so, 

 too, and spend no end of money to estab- 

 lish it in their rock gardens; but it is a 

 hard plant to export, and we can always 

 surpass England on mass effects with 

 bloodroot. 



As near as I can tell the most famous 

 rock-loving perennials that are native to 



The large-flowered catnip (Nepeta JIusgini) has pur- 

 ple flowers in racemes six or eight inches long. It 

 blooms steadily for three months 



America, and reasonably common even in 

 our gardens, are the following: 



Bloodroot (Sanguinaria Canadensis), 



white April 



Crested dwarf iris (Iris cristata), blue. April 



Wild pink (Silene Pennsylvania), 



rose Apr. -May 



Purple poppy mallow (Callirhoe in- 



volucrata) Apr. -Aug. 



Moss pink (Phlox subulata), crimson 



pink May 



* Yellow columbine (Aqnilegia chry- 



santha), yellow .... May-Aug. 



Wild bleeding heart (Dicentra cxi- 



mia), deep rose May-Sept. 



*Fire pink (Silene Virginica), crim- 

 son May-Sept. 



Coral bells (Heuchera sanguinea), 



red June-Sept. 



*Mist flower (Conodinium coelestin- 



um), bluish Sept.-Oct. 



Those marked * are the only ones that 

 grow more than a foot high. I must con- 

 fess that is it not a very strong list, from 

 which to pick the big American winners, 

 for the rose, pink, and crimson kinds are 

 not of the most popular shades, especially 

 in the case of the two greatest geniuses in 

 the list. Moss pink, in its wild state, has 

 a crude and violent color, and our rich 

 estate owners have already made the mistake 

 of painting whole hillsides with it, when 

 they could just as well have used white, 

 lavender, and other refined varieties of it. 

 So, too, the wild bleeding heart is a never- 

 ending marvel, because of its exquisite 

 foliage and profuse bloom from May to 

 September; but every time you look at its 

 color you sigh and turn away. 



However, we need not be discouraged 

 about the American element in rock gar- 

 dening for many reasons. 



AMERICAN EFFECTS IN THE ROCKERY 



In the first place, we have at least a hun- 

 dred wild flowers that we may have to grow 



