18 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



hot to grow alpine plants successfully, and this is truly our greatest 

 difficulty. If it is possible to place a rock construction facing 

 north, then our chances of success are greatly increased. But, 

 though our summer sunshine is too ardent, our winter snows are 

 of the very greatest benefit to these little plants. During the 

 winter before last, when my garden in Tuxedo was under a nice 

 blanket of snow for nearly four months, not a plant was lost in the 

 rock garden. Of course, in this country we also sometimes have 

 open winters, but never the warm green Januarys they often get in 

 England, which excite the plants into premature growth and 

 result in many flowers being destroyed. In Tuxedo we have 

 only one plant which has such an early habit that it always starts 

 blooming before Christmas. That plant is Erica hybrida, a variety 

 not unlike Erica carnca, but daintier, quicker-growing, and with 

 much paler flowers. This picture was taken in October. The 

 buds, of course, increased in size during the warm, sunny days of 

 November. 



For all the gray and woolly alpine plants our climate is far 

 better than the English, and we constantly read in the books by 

 Farrer and Robinson about gray-leaved plants damping off and 

 needing the protection of a piece of glass to keep off what they call 

 their rotting rains. A case in point is Androsace sarmeniosa. A 

 friend brought me a plant of it from Switzerland, and this is what 

 I read about it in Robinson's "Alpine Plants": "This is a Hima- 

 layan species, growing at an elevation of over 11,000 feet. The 

 flowers, borne in trusses of ten to twenty, at first sight resem- 

 ble those of a rosy white-eyed verbena. Like many other woolly- 

 leaved alpines, this is difficult to keep alive through our damp 

 winters. A piece of glass in a slanting position about six inches 

 above the plant preserves it. Care should also be taken to put 

 sandstone, broken fine, immediately under the rosettes of leaves 

 and over the surface of the soil, to keep every part of the plant, 

 except the roots, from contact with the soil. A dry calcareous 

 loam is best. Where limestone can be had to mix with the soil, a 

 much better display of flower and foliage can be obtained. It also 

 helps to keep the plant dry in winter." 



So we gave it a dry, well-drained, sunny place, and now this 

 androsace has spread like magic. No pieces of glass could be put 



