ROCK GARDENS
Dwarf Flowering and
Ornamental Shrubs and Trees for Rock
Gardens 3
The arrangement of shrubs
naturally varies according to the purpose
which they are to fulfill. If they are to
serve as individual specimens in the rock
garden, clearly no "arrangement" is
required. If planted in groups to form a
background or shelter, it is usually desirable
that several plants of a kind should be placed
together; though even here full space should
be allowed for each individual plant to develop.
This grouping together of, say, three to
half a dozen specimens, is not only more
effective than scattering single plants about
indiscriminately, but it makes it easier
to give each group of shrubs the special
soil in the rock gardens in which they thrive
best. (For soils suitable to each species,
the fact that we can have a continued sequence
of bloom from flowering shrubs almost all
through the year, provided they are carefully
selected, is often overlooked. It is necessary,
therefore, to select shrubs not only for
the colour of their flowers, their suitability
for their situation, but also for the time
of year at which they flower. Care must be
taken that specimens whose colours clash
and which bloom simultaneously are not placed
together. Associate shrubs whose blooms harmonize
in colour and time of flowering, and allow
the blooms of the specimens in flower to
be set off and enhanced by the foliage of
shrubs whose flowers are over or still to
come. The stronger-growers must be kept in
check by periodical pruning or they may overpower
the more beautiful but perhaps less vigorous
plants. When planting shrubs as backgrounds,
too great a regularity is to be avoided,
and care must be taken to see that they do
not present a straight, forbidding line.
Rather should they afford projections and
bays: now running forward into the rock garden,
now forming sheltered recesses in which plants
may find welcome shade and protection. During
the summer the soil round the shrubs should
be kept well hoed and should be forked over
each winter, except in the case of Rhododendrons,
Azaleas, etc., these requiring a mulching
of well-rotted leaves or peat. Where a shrub
is seen to be doing badly or to be exhausted,
well-decayed manure should be thoroughly
worked into the soil round the roots.
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