74 
THE HOME GARDEN. 
of lovely pink flowers; amna JNovce Zealandice , which 
makes a perfect carpet of its leaves, through which crim¬ 
son spikes of bloom shoot up with singular effect; dianthus 
alpinus and dianthus petrceus, both very pretty; erinus 
alpinus , with rose-purple flowers ; gentiana verna , myosotis 
rupicola , saxifraga , sedum , and a host of others. The 
maiden-hair fern is also lovely in a rockery, and a mingling 
of wild and cultivated ferns produces a charming variety. 
A small blighted tree, cut to the proper height, leaving 
a few shortened, low-growing branches, may have a rockery 
built around it, with rustic-looking baskets of terra-cotta, 
cocoanut shells, or beach shells, suspended from these pro¬ 
tuberances, and filled with growing and trailing plants. 
Wandering Jew and smilax, Kenilworth ivy and dew plant, 
will all do well in a rockery, while pansies will flourish in 
any shady place if they can have plenty of manure. Their 
low-growing habit makes them very desirable for the rock- 
ery. 
If the situation is cool and damp, wild ferns and other 
denizens of the woods will do miracles in the way of beauty, 
and the vivid scarlet of the partridge-berry will glow with 
richer luster amid the dark-green leaves. 
Ferns are not only beautiful in a rockery, but beautiful 
in themselves and in every situation in which they can be 
placed. The grand country mansion has its “fern house,” 
where the graceful fronds are grown in all their varieties, 
but the ordinary kinds may be raised in any shady bed 
where nothing else will grow, and many a damp, dreary 
back or side yard might be clothed with beauty by planting 
a basket or two of woodland treasures. 
The proper soil for ferns is said to be equal parts of 
sand, loam, and leaf mold, with a little charcoal. But a 
lady writes of her ferns : “I have a bed along the north 
side of our house, about sixty feet long and two feet wide, 
filled with dirt from the wood-pile and some from the woods. 
