Making a Rock Garden

H. S. Adams

• Publisher: Gregg Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781443717946
• eBook ISBN: 9781473377059
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

This vintage book contains a classic guide to building and maintaining beautiful rock gardens in both small and large spaces, as well as planting and propagating of a variety of suitable plants and shrubs. "Making A Rock Garden" will be of considerable utility to those wishing to create a interesting rocketries or incorporate new plants into existing rock gardens. Contents include: "Selection of a Site", "Construction of Rockeries", "Aspect and Position", "Materials for Rockeries", "Principles of Rockery Building", "General Construction", "Rock Gardens in Miniature", "The Simple Rockery", "Rock-Studded Banks", "Culture and Management", "Suitable Soils for Alpines", etc. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new introduction on the history of gardening.

PLANTS FOR A ROCK GARDEN

So many plants are suitable for a rock garden that the range of choice is bewildering. In this, as in the laying out of the garden, advisability takes precedence over pure personal desire, though, very fortunately, it is often not difficult to make the two go hand in hand; a little intelligent thought helps a lot.

To the beginner, no better advice can be given than that which applies to the picking out of the rocks—use the material which is close at hand. This is not, by any means, a mere suggestion to follow the lines of least resistance. It is far more. In the first place, there is always an endless amount of beautiful and suitable plant life to be had without going far afield. Then again, natural harmonious effects in your immediate neighborhood are pretty sure to be appropriate to your grounds. Finally, you can see for yourself how things grow, and as for the hardiness of plants, you have it already tested for you. This refers not alone to the natural conditions; there is a second wide field in the gardens—the hardy gardens—of others, where you can at once choose from the many and learn whether certain plants are too tender or require too much care for your use.

So far as plants native to the immediate neighborhood are concerned, their value to the rock garden of the average person with limited time, who is not obsessed with the idea of growing the rare and curious, cannot be overestimated. And they are so many; more than most realize, and often of an individual beauty not always appreciated in the bewildering profusion of the wild but plainly apparent when an individual, or a little group, is open to close study in a rock garden. Do not make the rather common mistake of thinking that they are too familiar to be interesting; they are never likely to be. And, honestly, can you say in your heart that they are?

Native plants are excellent material for the rock garden. The foam flower (Tiarella cordifolia) at the top, and one of the smaller ferns at the bottom

For a Connecticut rock garden the Greek valerian (Polemonium reptans) must be purchased, unless a neighbor can spare some from his collection of old-fashioned flowers; there it belongs in that category. But why should you of Minnesota or Missouri deny so beautiful a flower a place in your rock garden, simply because you have only to go to the woods for it? The English enthusiast brings home primroses from the Himalayas, gentians from the Swiss Alps, and Dryas Drummondi from the Canadian Rockies for his rock garden, but he does not fail to take advantage of some of the common things near-by—even the “pale primrose” and the cowslip.

From ferns alone, or from only plants of shrubby growth, a most beautiful native rock garden may be made. And adding small flowering plants, or excluding all else, there are limitless opportunities. It goes without saying that A’s rock garden in Maine will not be like B’s in Louisiana; but there is no law compelling it to be.

Among the common wild flowers of the East that take on unexpected new beauty when transferred to the rock garden are the celandine (Chelidonium majus), strawberry (Fragaria Virginica), cranesbill (Geranium maculatum), toadflax (Linaria vulgaris), orange hawkweed (Hieracium auranticum), herb Robert (Geranium Robertianum), coltsfoot (Tussilago Farfara), Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum), foam flower (Tiarella cordifolia), bloodroot (Sanguinaria Canadensis), and some of the violets. These are but a few names, and random ones at that. Some of them, the coltsfoot, cranesbill, celandine, and toadflax, spread too rapidly, but by careful watching and not allowing the seed to ripen, they may be kept within bounds. There are many such plants that will take all the room in sight if they are allowed to, and they must be watched closely, or else discarded altogether. Some of them answer a good purpose by giving the rock garden a quick start, after which they may easily be reduced or thrown out altogether. There need be no compunction about discarding. Certain plants, like certain friends, you enjoy having for a visit, but do not care to see remain forever and a day.

Annuals as a class are not desirable for the rock garden; for one thing, the care of renewal is too great. Biennials are almost as much care, but in each case there will always be exceptions that are a matter of individual preference. Few, for example, would have the heart to reject the dainty little purple toadflax of Switzerland (Linaria alpina), just because it is a biennial. The main dependence, however, must be placed on perennials—the plants that, barring accidents, last indefinitely. These should be mostly species; if horticultural, do not use the bizarre—Darwin tulips, for example, or the Madame Chereau iris. Nor,...

Table of contents

• Making A Rock Garden
• A Short History of Gardening
• THE ROCK GARDEN
• THE CHOICE OF A SITE
• THE WORK OF CONSTRUCTION
• PLANTING THE GARDEN
• PLANTS FOR A ROCK GARDEN
• THE WALL GARDEN
• WATER AND BOG GARDENS