The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
American Rock Gardens
Plants commonly seen in the flower border or elsewhere about the lawn should surely be omitted from the rock garden if the notion that this is a mountain slope with exclusive vegetation is to be maintained. Since this area is dedicated to plants too small or slender to be grown in the usual garden, the common garden plants should be kept out. But some plants, though small, are very much like weeds and grow far too well in the rock garden. Dandelion and Chickweed are persistent pests here, but no better are many others sold as rock plants. They are too troublesome as neighbors to better rock plants. There is no way to discover which are weeds except through trial.
Rock plants should thrive in full sun in poor sandy soil, either by means of deep root-system or fleshy stems and leaves. Those herbs which demand shade, moisture, or other special conditions are not for the usual rock garden; and discussion of their culture is made in Chapters VIII and IX. There are plenty of plants which will survive the baking heat of any summer if their bed has been properly constructed.
Of extreme importance as a character of a good rock plant is interest in flower, foliage, or habit of growth. In the hunt for more and newer rock plants any little weed on the side of the hill is dragged in by its Latin name and pronounced beautiful. There is no sense in cultivating tiny plants of little show in flower or foliage effect; yet many of such are extremely easy to grow, while Primroses from Yunnan or Saxifrages from the Alps seem most unwilling to thrive on a manufactured mountain in a foreign soil and climate.
Maintenance
CONSTRUCTION was long and wearisome, and we have hardly begun to discuss the plants; but worse yet is the care needed by this garden from month to month. It ought to be true after the faithful following of instructions in these first chapters and careful choosing of plants from the lists of the next that the rock garden will then take care of itself and our only labor is to enjoy. But a rock garden is more to be waited upon than any other kind of ornamental garden, and the least neglect is quickly visible. A rock plant in its new home needs the care of a sick child, and a rock garden is an orphanage with all children ill of various troubles. Some plants grow thriftily for a year or two and then die off completely (these are biennials or monocarpic or of changeable minds); some never made any pretense of growing after being set out (these were on hunger strike from start); while others, seemingly small and meek, by roots and seeds soon intend to inherit the whole area. It is difficult enough to manage rock plants, but like the tares in the wheat-field come hordes of weeds, and all cannot be allowed to grow together till the harvest.
