Primulas 



bella, and at last owned myself vanquished by the beauty 

 of Alpine Primulas at home, when I saw the peaty hillside 

 blue with P. glutinosa, there as common as Cowslips in a 

 home meadow, instead of dotted singly as on the Brenner. 

 Home they went in the largest tins I could cajole out of 

 reluctant head waiters, and how will they behave here is 

 now the burning question. On arrival they were all 

 pulled asunder, and as separate rosettes planted in lines in 

 a frame in almost pure sand and leaf soil. By the autumn 

 they Icoked fat and leafy above, and by experimental lift- 

 ings were proved to have made long, white roots and to 

 be ready to go out. An overgrown portion of the rock 

 garden, hitherto sacred to Geranium species, was torn down 

 and rebuilt to imitate the Tyrolean homes from which I 

 had exiled my Primulas. I had to leave out the Cimon 

 della Parla and the Drei Zinnen, but hope the carefully- 

 mixed soils I have given them will make them so happy 

 that they will not look up and miss such trifles. 



Peat in small quantities, leaf mould used generously, a 

 stiffening of the sourfl resulting from these two by a liberal 

 dose of the old soil, and the main geological formation of 

 this miniature range was ready for adaptation to the special 

 wants of its flora. Feeling too poor to invest in granite 

 chips or even birdcage sand, I commandeered a load of our 

 native red gravel, well screened, from the estate mason's 

 storehouse and worked it into my too sticky compost in 

 varying quantities. The lower slopes, reserved for P. 

 minima, longiflora, and glutinosa, had only enough to make 

 the soil feel sharp and gritty, but vertical crevices prepared 

 for Auricula and tyrolensis had the upper two or three inches 

 well reddened with the gravel. The hybrids had a middle 

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