THE AMATEUR’S FLOWER GARDEN. 
251 
veritable rubbish below, because it is so richly clothed, that 
the bricks and stones employed in the building are hidden, 
and it completely accomplishes its purpose, that of affordiug 
a suitable site for a number of beautiful plants that require 
no costly aids to their development, but are better adapted 
for a raised bank of soil and a stony surface to rest upon, 
than for the common border, which is usually too damp in 
winter for herbaceous plants of a trailing, surface-spreading, 
or cushion-forming character. 
In selecting rockery plants, it will be well for the beginner 
to avoid all expensive and troublesome subjects. There are 
numbers of plants of noble 
character that are not usually 
classed as rock plants, that 
may be introduced advan¬ 
tageously for distinctive effect 
in bays, recesses, and com¬ 
manding heights, such as the 
pampas grass, the arundo, 
bambusas in variety for shel¬ 
tered nooks, the gigantic 
heracleum, the acanthus, the 
lyme grass, and the pliyto- 
laccas. Then for rich colour¬ 
ing, numbers of cheap and 
showy herbaceous and sub- 
shrubby plants, especially 
such as spread laterally, as 
for example, the dwarf hype- 
ricums, the double yellow 
lotus, the double dyer’s broom, 
the alyssums, iberis, the 
hardy geraniums, erodiums, 
campanulas, saxifrages, se- 
dums, and every species and variety of thyme that can be got. 
Hardy variegated-leaved plants are especially valuable, and 
trailing plants, such as the ivy-leaved toad-flax, the peri¬ 
winkles, ivies, and the golden-leaved and common moneywort 
are indispensable. For the shady places there are hardy ferns 
and equisetums in endless variety, and the lily of the valley 
is not the least worthy to associate with them on open slopes, 
where the sun peeps in morning and evening to diffuse a genial 
HYPERICUM PATULUM. 
