CHOICE PLANTS FOR ROCK GARDENS 147 
repays the trouble of annual replenishment if winter kills 
the plants left out. 
GENTIANA.—As mentioned in the previous chapter, 
the Gentians are held so highly in esteem that everybody 
desires to grow them, and it seems a strange thing that 
whilst in some gardens the majority of them will thrive 
as well as the commonest among garden flowers, we find 
may instances where, despite elaborate preparations and 
much anxious care, the plants merely exist, and but seldom 
blossom. 
The fact is that more often than not the elaborate 
preparations are in reality the plant’s undoing. We 
find, maybe, a nice cosy bed with leaf soil, peat, and perhaps 
manure provided with a liberal hand, in order that the 
plants may make good growth, but that is mistaken kind- 
ness. What the Gentians really want is first, free drainage, 
second, a fairly stiff soil, of a substantial loamy nature, 
plenty of coarse grit and stone chippings to keep the soil 
open, and then firm planting. G. acaulis, the general 
favourite with its large upturned bells of heavenly blue, 
and its quaintly yellow and green painted interior, and 
G. verna, the small but intensely brilliant blue miniature, 
both prefer to have their tufted growths wedged tightly 
between fragments of porous stone, and the harder the 
stones can be pressed down, without, of course, breaking 
or bruising the growths, the better the plant will thrive. 
The remaining requirements are abundance of water from 
spring to midsummer, and exposure to the sun. The 
Gentian family is a very large one, considerably more 
than half a hundred species and varieties being in cult? 
