32 FLOWERS AND GARDENS OF MADEIRA 



would be possible to induce any of our favourite 

 Alpine plants to adopt a home in warmer climes ; 

 but I fear, though some may survive for a year or 

 two, in the end they will grow steadily smaller, 

 until they dwindle away and cease to exist. So 1 

 am afraid the making of a rock-garden in the sense 

 which we in England regard a rock-garden i.e., 

 an artificial arrangement of rocks, clothed with 

 carpets and cushions of flowering Alpine plants- 

 will never be possible in Madeira. Here the rock- 

 garden must remain as Nature intended it to be 

 rocks and cliffs, interspersed with prickly-pear, 

 agaves, cactus, some of the larger saxifrages, 

 and such native plants as Echium fastuoswn. 



The gardens owned by the English suffer, as a 

 rule, somewhat severely from the absence of their 

 owners just at the season of the year when they 

 require the closest care and attention, and this may 

 possibly account for the failure to acclimatize many 

 of these imported treasures. If they could be 

 tended with loving hands, screened from the 

 fiercest of the sun's rays, given exactly the amount 

 of water they require, no doubt there would be 

 many less failures; but the ignorant Portuguese 

 gardener probably either starves the plant by 

 entirely omitting to water it, especially if it is 



