THE ELOEAL WOKLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 283 



will serve for these, except id the work of tying or bleaching. This 

 must not be attempted with the lettuce, unless you want thetn to 

 get rotten at the heart in a very short time. On the subject of pre- 

 serving salads during winter I shall offer a few remarks in time to 

 be useful. 



A LITTLE GAEDEiS^ OE ALPINES. 



HREE years ago R. Farmer, Esq., of Hornsey, had a lot of Messrs. 

 Backhouse's and Messrs. E. G, Henderson's best alpines and herbaceous 

 plants, and what to do with the tiny and choic3 ones like the Gentians 

 and Mountain Forget-me-uotswas the question. 

 Mr. Farmer grew his alpines in an open space. A little bed was dug 

 out in the clay soil to the depth of two feet, and a drain run from it to an outlet 

 near at hand ; the bed was filled with fine sandy peat and a little loam and leaf- 

 mould, and when nearly full, rustic stones of very different sizes were placed around 

 the raar<iin, so as to raise the bed on an average one foot or so above the turf. More 

 soil was then put in, and a few rough slabs, arranged so as to crop out from the soil 

 in the centre, completed the preparation for the neater Sedums and Sempervivums, 

 such Saxifragas as Csesia and Roehelliana, such Dianthuses as alpinus and petrceus. 

 Mountain Forget-me-nots, Gentians, little spring bulbs, Hepatica angulosa, etc. 

 They were planted, the finer and rarer tilings getting the best positions, and when 

 finished, the bed looked somewhat like an enlarged edition of the vases of alpines 

 which Messrs. Backhouse sent to our shows, but much beauty was not expected from 

 the arrangement for a year at least. 



However, in eight weeks things had "taken so well," and the bed looked so 

 beautiful, from a dozen plants of Calandrinia umbellata that had been planted on 

 the little prominences flowering so gaily and profusely as to make the arrangement 

 equal to one of bedding plants from the " effective " point of view, that Mr. Farmer 

 immediately made a fellow for it, arranged in the same manner, with more loam, 

 however, to suit the different tastes of the alpines, and planted with as different 

 subje' ts from those in the other bed as could be got, confining himself still to the 

 choicest alpines, except on the outer side of the largest stones of the margin, w^here 

 such herbaceous plants as Campanula carpatica bicolor (sky-blue on the upper 

 portion of the corolla, and white below) have been planted in both beds with great 

 advantage. 



The only attention these beds have required since planting has been to keep a 

 free-growing species from overrunning a subject like Gentiana verna, and to well 

 water the bed^ on hot days— to keep them, in fact, thoroughly moist. '1 hey will 

 require no further attention for years. With the exception of the exquisite Gentiana 

 bavarica, every alpine plant put in those beds has grown well ; the beds have pre- 

 sented fresh floral interest every week since the dawn of spring (indeed Gentiana 

 verna was opening buds all the winter), and will continue gay wiili the Calandrinia 

 and Linaria till late in autumn. The best display as regards variety was probably 

 in the season of Dianthus alpinus ; the best effect is afforded by the Calandnnia 

 dotted over the beds, and this lasts for months. It is a marvellous plan for effect, 

 as may be well seen in another part of the garden, where about sixty plants form 

 a mass, growing in peat. When the sun shines on it, the "vivid magenta" of this 

 flower ecipses every other coLmr. The little dark purple bells of the rare Cam- 

 panula pulla droop very effectively over such things as that gem among Sedums, 

 brevif hum, and fairy bushes of Alyssum spinosum, evergrein, or more correctly 

 ever-silvery. The leaves of this Alyssum, if I am not mistaken, will show the 

 stellate hairs more beautifully t':. an any other plant known to luicroscopists. Choice 

 silvery-leaved subjects like the oyster plant, Diotis, and Androsace lanuginosa, are 

 especially useful, even if they never flowered, for raingliug with little green things 

 like Thymus corsicus, that run about and lay over the stones so naturally. 



William Robinson. 



