14 
THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
little tiny rockery can be got up, and the rock-plants must be in 
proportion to its size. 
The same may be said of the area. A rockery for ferns would 
thrive there very well, and be a very interesting object to my city 
readers, who seldom have a chance of beholding them in their native 
haunts. The shade and protection afforded by an area is just the 
thing required for ferns. 
I can fancy a fern rockery built up against the area wall around 
the root of a robust Ivy, where the graceful fronds of the ferns and 
the pretty little Linoria and Sedums form a natural rustic bank 
from which the ivy seems to spring, rockery and ivy forming to- 
gether a picture of beauty. 
The common hardy British ferns are the kinds to cultivate in 
the area rockery. Always be particular to water them gently over- 
head every morning and evening during the season. 
There are a great many contrivances in the way of baskets, 
brackets, flower-stands, and rockeries which a person of some taste 
and ingenuity can work out. It only requires an imaginative mind, 
and proper means and appliances at hand, to contrive and work 
out numberless little inventions for the embellishment of town 
gardens with the lovely flower and foliage plants now so cheap 
and plentiful. 
The principal care of the gardener must always be that the plants 
be kept clean and properly watered, for it is a truly miserable sight 
to see town plants 3icklv and drooping for want of moisture, and 
begrimed with dust, as if neglect had claimed them entirely for his 
own. I do not believe any of my readers will allow their lovely 
flowers to reach that state of wretchedness. 
THE AURICULA AS A BORDER PLANT. 
iHE great care bestowed upon the valuable named varieties, 
that is to say, the florists’ auriculas, appears to place 
this plant at a disadvantage as one adapted for the 
borders. Tet we have not a finer border plant, pro- 
vided it has proper treatment. The common border, in 
which all sorts of plants are grown, will suit them very well, as a 
peep into almost any cottage garden will suffice to demonstrate. 
But to enjoy them in an especial manner as border flowers, prepare 
for them a selected spot, facing north, open and breezy, and shaded 
from the mid-day sun in summer. There need not be any elaborate 
preparation of the soil, but a deep, well-drained, sandy loam is 
absolutely needful. If the plantation is to be a large one, it will be 
desirable to raise a stock of plants from seed, and then the question 
arises, how to obtain it? Shop seed of auriculas is, generally 
speaking, poor stuff ; but there may be somewhere a trader who can 
and will part with a pinch worth sowing. As we are bound to give 
direct advice, we counsel the amateur to purchase a few of the 
