e end of one or two
seasons' growth. Unless you are a collector, variety is of little
importance. The main thing is that there shall be beauty as a whole, a
few marked seasonal effects of color with massed bloom and some green
the year round; the garden must never be bare at any time, as nature
will show you. Plants clustered here and single there is a good
planting rule. Colonies, always of marked irregularity, ought to merge
into one another, but they should not so overrun the rock work that no
stones are in sight. Not infrequently some of the best effects are
obtained where more rock than flowers is seen. A boulder, for example,
calls for the contrast of plants, perhaps only a few low-growing ones in
a natural pocket, rather than a semi-eclipse. As a rule, plant one
hundred of half a dozen or so suitable, and easy, species in preference
to fifty or more kinds.

Study at the same time the form of the plants that are to be used; some
quickly resolve themselves into a carpet, some never get beyond mere
tufts, some always grow straight up, some prefer to hang down, and some
have foliage that is evergreen or nearly so. To be more specific, one
plant of _Saponaria ocymoides_ will spread out over four square feet of
soil, and thus fill completely a moderate-sized pocket, whereas to
conceal the same amount of ground three dozen auriculas might have to be
used. The same is true of the white rock cress (_Arabis albida_). So,
too, with a crevice. A single plant of one of the trailing stonecrops
would fill it, perhaps, when a number of rosettes of the smaller kinds
of house leek would be called for.

Tall plants, like the foxglove, may sometimes be used, in a small group,
at the end of a bay on the level of the path; but they are best placed
behind the rock work, as a background, or as dominating features of the
entrance or exit of the garden. At the entrance or exit such bold plants
make a good bridge between the rock garden and the outer grounds.
Spreading and trailing plants should be placed a foot or more above the
path level and most plants with tufts or rosettes of foliage. If the
path is broad enough some of the wide-spreading plants may go at the
base of the rocks, but the rule there is to use those of moderate
spread, with a few tufted plants and some that grow upright, but are not
tall, to lend variety. When the path is of flat stones, irregular in
both size and placing, this growth should fill all the soil space--eve