1879.] HARDY PERMANENT EDGINGS. 547 



experience, — and first to some of the neglected Sedums. There are 

 several which have become quite familiar to most people, of the very 

 small S. acre type, such as S. acre aurea and S. acre elegans ; also S. 

 glaucum, lydium, dasyphyllum, and corsicum. But there are others 

 equally deserving of culture, and the foremost is surely Sedum album, 

 a dense-growing, reddish-green species ; but its beauty is in the flowers 

 — it is quite a flowering plant for edgings. Last summer it lasted a 

 long time on the rockery and in borders; and many yards on the top of 

 a high wall here were quite gay with its elegant flowers, but did not 

 last so long as those on the ground. We intend pressing this into the 

 flower-garden service next summer. Another bold-growing glaucous 

 sort is at present in better condition than it has been all the summer 

 — namely, monstrosum, elegans, or Fosterianum. It sometimes grows 

 with the ends of the shoots fasciated, so called monstrosum. Which- 

 ever is the right name, it is a very desirable plant in the mass, does 

 not flower very freely, the spikes large and heavy, yellow, and best 

 pinched off as they appear. Sedum anacampseros is a really elegant 

 species, with round glaucous leaves, not unlike a small Echeveria 

 secunda glauca. The stems lie prostrate on the ground like other 

 Sedums, but the little pyramidal ends of the shoots are always erect. 

 There is a large sheet of it hanging over a large rockery-stone here, and 

 it is novel and elegant. It is a plant as old as any English garden. We 

 have propagated several hundreds of it by nipping off the leafy points 

 of the shoots and inserting them in prepared ground, and shall give it 

 a place in the flower-beds next year. Sedum acre aureum is now being 

 used to carpet beds of Hyacinths and Tulips, and we expect in the spring 

 that the arrangement will look well. This has a tendency to turn off 

 green on rich soil, when it fast becomes an intolerable weed. It keeps 

 colour best when made to creep and hang over stones. Another of those 

 Sedums, and we have done with them — Sedum spurium or oppositi- 

 folium, we are not sure. It forms a close dense mass of green, close 

 on the ground, the leaves broad and fleshy. There are three varieties 

 growing on blocks, stones, and the open border here. One variety is 

 the best in colour — a dark-red ; the other two are white and rose-colour, 

 the flowers large. This Sedum will make a very desirable change 

 among hardy carpet-plants ; even the flowers are showy hanging over a 

 large stone. A few hundreds put in to propagate last month in nursery 

 lines have become quite red in the foliage, as the small Sedum lydium 

 does under a hot sun. There are three of the Periwinkles, which are 

 very neat for permanent edgings to beds — namely, Vinca herbacea, 

 V. minor, and V. minor variegata — the latter a very choice plant, 

 though all are sometimes found carpeting the ground in woods. The 

 variegated variety is a good substitute for Euonymus radicans varie- 

 gata, which requires rather a warm soil and climate to bring out its 

 character. The Vinca thrives anywhere in sun or shade, creeping over 

 the rockery or in the open border. The double-flowering variety of 



