SPA' /JVC GARDENS. 175 



deserve a better place, or are more worthy of good culture in visible 

 groups and colonies or rich garden borders. Apart from the lovely 

 races of garden forms raised from the Primrose, the Cowslip, and the 

 Oxlip, and also the Alpine Auriculas, double Primroses should not 

 be forgotten, as in all moist districts and in peaty and free soil they 

 give such tender and beautiful colour in groups, borders, or slightly 

 shaded among dwarf shrubs. Primroses and Polyanthus of native 

 origin, are well backed up by the beautiful Indian Primrose (Primula 

 rosea), which thrives apace in cool soils in the north of England and 

 in Scotland, and which, when grown in bold groups, is very good in 

 effect, as are the purplish Indian Primroses under like conditions. 



RocKFOiL, Gentian, and Alpine Phlox. — The large- 

 leaved Indian Rockfoils (Saxifraga) are in many soils very easily 

 grown, and they are showy spring flowers in bold groups, especially 

 some of the improved varieties. Although it is only in places where 

 there is rocky ground or large rock gardens that one can get the 

 beauty of the smaller Mountain Rockfoils (Saxifraga), we cannot 

 omit to notice their beauty — both the white, yellow, and crimson- 

 flowered kind — when seen in masses. The same may be said of 

 Gentians ; beautiful as they are in the mountains, few gardens have 

 positions where we can get their fine effect, always excepting the old 

 Gentianella (G. acaulis), which in old Scotch and English gardens used 

 to make such handsome broad edgings, and which is easily grown in 

 a cool soil, and gives, perhaps, the noblest effect of blue flowers that 

 one can enjoy in our latitudes in spring. The tall Phloxes are plants 

 of the summer, but there is a group of American dwarf alpine 

 Phloxes of the mountains which are among the hardiest and most 

 cheery flowers of spring, thriving on any dry banks and in the drier 

 parts of rock gardens, forming mossy edgings in the flower garden, 

 and breaking into a foam of flowers early in spring. 



Pansies. — The Viola family is most precious, not only in the 

 many forms of the sweet Violet, which will always deserve garden 

 cultivation, but in the numerous varieties of the Pansy, which flower so 

 effectively in the spring. The best of all, perhaps, for artistic use are 

 the Tufted Pansies, which are delightfully simple in colour — white, 

 pale blue, or lavender, and various other delicate shades. Almost 

 perermial in character, they can be increased and kept true, and they 

 give us distinct and delicate colour in masses as wide as we wish, 

 instead of the old " variegated " effect of Pansies. Though the 

 separate flowers of these were often handsome, the effect of the 

 Tufted Pansies with their pure and delicate colours is more valuable, 

 and these also, while pretty in groups and patches, will, where there 

 is space, often be worth growing in little nursery beds. 



Forget-me-nots are among the most welcome flowers of spring. 



