ALPINE FLOWER, ROCK, AND WALL GARDENS. 85 



there ; were these places inhabited by trees and shrubs, we should 

 find fewer alpine plants among them; on the other hand, were no 

 stronger vegetation found at a lower elevation, these plants would 

 often appear there. Also, as there are few hard and fast lines in 

 Nature, many plants found on the high Alps are also met with in 

 rocky or barish ground at much lower elevations. Gentiana verna, 

 for example, often flowers very late in summer when the snow 

 thaws on a very high mountain ; yet it is also found ort much 

 lower mountains, and occurs in England and Ireland. In the close 

 struggle upon the plains and low, tree-clad hills, the smaller species 

 are often overrun by trees, trailers, bushes, and vigorous herbs, but, 

 where in far northern and high mountain regions these fail from the 

 earth, the lovely alpine flowers prevail. 



Alpine plants possess this charm, and include things widely 



different: tiny orchids, tree-like moss, and ferns that peep from 



crevices of alpine cliffs, often so small that they 



Charm of end- seem to cling to the rocks for shelter, not daring 



less variety. to throw forth their fronds with airy grace; 

 bulbous plants, from Lilies to Bluebells ; evergreen 

 shrubs, perfect in leaf and blossom and fruit, yet so small that a 

 finger glass would make a house for them ; dwarfest creeping plants, 

 spreading over the brows of rocks, draping them with lovely colour ; 

 Rockfoils and Stonecrops no bigger than mosses, and, like them, 

 mantling the earth with green carpets in winter, and embracing 

 nearly every type of the plant-life of northern lands. 



In the culture of these plants, the first thing to be remembered is 

 that much difference exists among them as regards size and vigour. 

 We have, on the one hand, a number of plants that merely require 

 to be sown or planted in the roughest way to flourish Arabis and 

 Aubrietia, for example; and, on the other, there are some kinds, 

 like Gentians and the Primulas of the high Alps, which are 

 rarely seen in good health in gardens, and it is as to these that 

 advice is chiefly required. Nearly all the misfortunes which 

 these little plants have met with in our gardens are due to a false 

 conception of what a rock garden ought to be, and of what the 

 alpine plant requires. It is too often thought that they will do 

 best if merely raised on tiny heaps of stones and brick rubbish, 

 such as we frequently see dignified with the name of " rockwork." 

 Mountains are often " bare," and cliffs devoid of soil ; but we must 

 not suppose that the choice jewellery of plant-life scattered over the 

 ribs of the mountain lives upon little more than the air and the 

 melting snow. Where else can we find such a depth of stony soil 

 as on the ridges of shattered stone and grit flanking some great 

 glacier, stained with tufts of crimson Rockfoil? Can we gauge the 



