IN A DUNEDIN ROCK GARDEN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20708, 4 May 1929, Page 7

IN A DUNEDIN ROCK GARDEN.

As the autumn advances owners of rock gardens get worried because the occupants are not so gay and interesting as they were during spring and summer. In fact,, some folk are apt to long for a state of perpetual spring in the garden, a state of things which .would probably become boring. It is neither right nor natural that there should be many flowers in the rock garden in iate autumn and winter. The great aim of everyone who loves or tends a rock garden should be to keep it, interesting all the year round. If the rock garden is planted with masses of aubrietia, arabis, alyssums, etc.; its beauty is bound to wane, and the interest in it grow thin about midsummer; but if these early subjects are planted almost alternately with late flowering plants, it gives patches of restful green between each mass of colour, and also does much to prevent the inevitable clash of colour when a great number of shades come very close to each other. Nearly all rock plants are now supplied in pots so that it is possible to make, renewals at almost any season of the year. All late flowering plants do Well if planted in spring, and the majority make good clumps before their flowering season. It is wonderful how much longer some of the early flowering plants "will keep in bloom if their seed pods are removed; and if time can be found to do many of the mossy saxifrages and campanulas will bloom a second time. Quite a number of plants continue to bloom in Dunedin rock gardens. No doubt the spell of fine weather recently is accountable for . this. Amongst the late comers is Gentiana sino-ornata, one of the loveliest of its race. Flowering in April adds additional value to the plant, and for that reason . alone it should become extremely popular. It has grassy foliage almost similar to G. Farreri but broader, and has large trumpets of an Oxford blue shade, beautifully striped on the outside.. It likes a fairly rich soil, equal parts peat and leaf mould and a little sand. lam hoping that it will be a better doer than G. Farreri. That beautiful old spring favourite G. acaulis, has made a mistake and sent out some fine blooms in the autumn this year. Plumbago larpentae, a typical autumn flowering plant, requires a warm, light, sheltered position. The flowers,- of a deep blue colour, are borne on red steins SIX' Inches high. A most profuse bloomer is Zauchncria Californica, but it must have one of the sunniest aspects where it will be kept fairly dry, especially in winter. Poor, gritty soil, well drained, will reward you with a wealth of orange scarlet flowers, when colour is wanted in the rock garden.

A fine patch of Verbena chamedrifolia has flowered without intermission since early summer. Like the Zauclmeria, it requires a very sunny position, and its brilliant scarlet flowers then make it one of the most effective plants on the rock garden. Linaria alpina and its variety rosea still help to brighten the landscape with their dainty antirrhinum like-flowers. For the shaded rock garden the hardy cyclamens are useful as well as beautiful plants. C. Ledersefolia is a delightful plant with leaves shaped like an ivy and marbled in a beautiful manner with shades of gray and light green. It flowers in autumn and the colour is light red, there is also a white variety. In their native haunts the cyclamen are .found in the shelter and shade of a small wood. If we arc to have any success with these flowers in our gardens we must try to imitate these conditions when planting the corms. A due attention to foliage will greatly enhance the effect of colour in the rock garden. There are, for instance, a number of dwarf shrubs, whose leaves turn to beautiful shades of red as winter comes. Amongst the number are the Vacciniums and dwarf Cotoneasters, The scarlet of their leaves is only outshone by their scarlet berries. C. horizontalis is a most useful shrub for the top of a rock garden, or against a stump or brick wall, and for a roughcast garage it is very ornamental with its bright red berries. W. P.