ROCK GARDEN

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In the American West, water is so alarmingly scarce these days that California has imposed restrictions and, as the Sacramento Bee reports, landscapers are planting desert plants and rock gardens.

The drought, Gov. Jerry Brown told USA Today recently, is "unprecedented in recorded history."

The dryness may be unprecedented, but planting rock gardens is not. In fact, in early 20th century America, rock gardens were all the rage.Rock Festival

Across the country, Americans competed to create the coolest rockery in the neighborhood. People in some states sold rocks to people in other states. People bought rocks for their size and color. It was neighbor against neighbor, with backyards as battlegrounds. Folks were rocking the suburbs.

"My earliest memory of a rock garden was when I was a little girl at my grandmother's house on a slope that was not able to be mowed near her front walkway," says Linda Antonacio-Hoade of the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences extension services. "It had beautiful rocks and plants with a color palette that played off the rocks. It was low maintenance and upkeep." The Penn State Extension offers suggestions for fashioning your own rock garden.

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