The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Rockweler Rockgardens

The first point is easily settled. The veriest novice at rock gardening would hardly think of including Darwin tulips or gladiolus; in general, 12 or 15 inches will mark the limit in height.

Failing to pass in habit of growth and character, are such obviously formal things as hyacinths, double tulips, and most of the Early and Cottage varieties—even most of the daffodils are a bit too bulky and stiff and garden-border looking.

But, fortunately, we have left a most gay and companionable little company which includes such things as the smallest of the daffodils, which are lost among their more robust sisters in the garden border, even though they may be grown there; many of the fascinating little tulip species; the trooping company of the brave-hearted "minor bulbs" which come to meet the spring almost before the earliest of the rock plants have opened an eye—the grape hyacinths, snowdrops, scillas, chionodoxas, and dainty little wild crocuses.

I should never want to be with- out these little treasures in my rock garden, even though it were located where all the most difficult and rare alpines might be grown. And there are many others equally desirable, including numerous native American species which are gradually becoming available, to extend the season of little bulbs in the rock garden from the grape hyacinths, through the later blooming scillas, to the autumn flowering crocuses in the fall.

PLANTING BULBS IN THE ROCK GARDEN

The location to be given such bulbs as may be used in the rock garden is a matter for consideration. Many of them like best a sequestered and sunny little nook, sheltered from north and west by a neighboring rock, so they may look out early in the spring and yet be somewhat protected from the tearing fingers of the March wind, and also bake nicely when they go to sleep for the summer later on. The flowers also show to best advantage against a rock at a season when the ground is mostly bare and brown.