priate 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?

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.

[Illustration: 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]

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