172 NE\V ZEALAND PLANTS. 



ALPINE PLANTS. 



Perhaps a formal rockery, or a special alpine garden, may seem 

 altogether too ambitious for a school-garden. Still, the New Zealand 

 mountain-plants yield such instructive material for study, and are so 

 beautiful or curious, that a few, at any rate, should be grown ; and 

 there is usually some shady corner that might be spared for these 

 plants. Also, a good deal can be done in the way of providing a suit- 

 able growing-place by the aid of a few bricks or stones, especially if 

 there be an abundant water-supply. 



Of all forms of flower-gardening, this growing of alpine plants is 

 the most fascinating. During recent years the alpine garden has 

 become firmly established in Europe as an indispensable part of any 

 garden of note. In scientific establishments, too, the cultivation of 

 alpine plants is pursued with vigour. The new Botanic Gardens of 

 Berlin have a great rockery, arranged on plant-geographical prin- 

 ciples, to represent the different alpine floras of Europe. Some day, 

 when we in New Zealand have what we ought to possess, a national 

 botanic garden, it may there be possible to reproduce the different 

 plant societies of New Zealand. The Royal Botanic Gardens of 

 Edinburgh have the finest collection of alpine plants in Britain, and 

 are specially rich in New Zealand species. Many of the Continental 

 universities have their alpine gardens high in the Alps, where the 

 effect of an alpine climate on the form and structure of plants can be 

 studied.* 



As for growing New Zealand alpine plants, the method entirely 

 depends upon the climate of the locality. At Invercargill, in many 

 parts of Dunedin and its environs, on the west coast of the South 

 Island, and probably at many places in the interior of the North 

 Island, alpine plants can be grown with the greatest ease in the ordi- 

 nary flower-border, any special construction, such as a, rockery, being 

 quite superfluous for many species. But in some parts of New Zea- 

 land, and in certain soils, it is quite otherwise. The grand secret of 

 growing New Zealand ' alpines ' is to give them perfect drainage, a, 

 shady but quite open position, and plenty of water. Where the drain- 

 age is absolutely perfect, it is hardly possible to overdo the watering 



'' : A garden of this kind is being established at the ('ass, in the mountains 

 of Canterbury, by Canterbury College 'New Zealand University). 



