PART L] CULTURAL 79 



flowers are often beautiful in a treacherous fortnight at the 

 beginning of February, and are suddenly destroyed by a return 

 of winter in its severest form. I may mention, amongst others, 

 Saxifraga Burseriana and sancta, and their near relatives and 

 hybrids, Primula marginata and intermedia, Androsace carnea, 

 Chamaejasme and Laggeri, several dwarf species of Alyssum and 

 Iberis, and there are a good many more. Pots or pans contain- 

 ing these may be grouped together in an open sunny spot, and 

 plunged in sand or coal-ashes in a rough frame made for them, so 

 that the lights may be not more than 3 inches or 4 inches above 

 the pots. These lights should be removed in the daytime when 

 the weather is fine, and air should be admitted, according to the 

 temperature, at night. Such a sheet of elegant beauty, lasting, 

 if well arranged, through February, March, and April, may be 

 obtained in this way, that I often wonder why amateurs attempt 

 to flower early alpines in any other fashion. With me April 

 is the earliest month in which I can expect to have anything 

 gay on the open rockery without disappointment. I am obliged 

 to disfigure the slopes with sheets of glass and handlights to 

 preserve through winter at all Omphalodes Lucilise, Onosma 

 tauricum, Androsace sarmentosa, and others which cannot endure 

 winter wet, and the real pleasure of the rockery begins when 

 the frame alpines are waning." 



ALPINE FLOWERS IN PANS OR BASKETS. 



So long as the exaggerated ideas of the difficulties of grow- 

 ing alpine flowers were prevalent, it was the custom, even 

 in good gardens, to grow most of these plants in pots in 

 frames, while at flower exhibitions we often see them now 

 shown, and, bearing that in mind, it is important that they 

 should be well grown in that way. Occasionally, too, we see 

 them, as in the Alpine House at Kew, shown for their beauty 

 in the Spring, in cool houses. Where there is the least 

 difficulty as regards climate, such as the smoke of the town, 

 having them slightly protected in pots will often gain a point 

 or two, and in cold districts there is some reason why the early 



