KEEPING THE ROCK GARDEN IN FLOWER

Evening Star, Issue 20980, 19 December 1931, Page 22

KEEPING THE ROCK GARDEN IN FLOWER

After the patches of gubrietia, arabis, and stonecrop have finished flowering tho rock garden and crazy paths always seem so colourless unless .well stocked with later-flowering plants. In a rock garden it is a. good plan to leave spaces in which annual plants and seeds can he put. Do not plant solely with spi'ingj bulbs and plants. In a large rock garden there are often fairly big beds amongst the rocks, and these do very well if treated in the same way as flower beds on lawns. They should be filled with different plants in succession. In tlx© spring they can be filled with wallflowers, myosotis, cheiranthus, etc. The latter plant will flower all summer if the dead blossoms are picked t off. This also applies to the mauve alpine wallflower, which is very pretty massed together on a rockery. Antirrhinums, summer-flowering stock (ten week), or gladioli follow on, and asters for autumn flowering. If there are only a few spaces, these can he filled with antirrhinums (dwarf), Campanula pusilla (blue flower and three or four inches high), lupins (dwarf variety), marigolds, rock pinks, and Phlox drummondx (dwarf). In the crevices of crazy paths or between rocks annual seeds, such as candytuft, Virginian stock, or alpssums, can be sown. Once you have sown these seeds in your garden, you will always have them. The plant will seed themselves in the points of the paving stones. _ Even wallflower and antirrhinums will do this if the crevices are left undisturbed.