15.—ARTIFICIAL ROCKERIES.
A well-formed and flourishing rockery is an ornament to every lawn.
Petrified wood forms very beautiful rockeries, but as our purpose is to assist our young friends to make their own rockeries, we will leave the more elaborate to the gardener.
Save all the clinkers from your furnace coal, dip them in a hot lime wash to color them pure white, their fantastic shapes are thus more conspicuous; arrange them in a mound according to your fancy; leave at suitable distances cavities of six or eight inches deep, to be filled with soil; in this plant your creeping plants; bright colors should be selected for a white rockery. Dwarf Scarlet Tropæolum, Scarlet Verbenas, Petunias, Golden Moneywort, Lobelias, Scarlet Geraniums, Myrtles, Coleus, German Ivy, &c., are used to good effect on this rock work. Hydraulic cement instead of lime will make a pretty drab color. If the rockery is protected by some shade, it looks well to plant it with Ferns and Lycopodiums.