332 



ALPINE FLOWERS FOR GARDENS 



[PART II. 



plants, see the " English Flower- 



VITTADENIA TRILOBA (New 

 Holland Daisy). A pretty Australian 

 plant, bearing an abundance of flowers 

 with yellowish disks and rosy-white 

 rays, somewhat like those of a Daisy ; 

 the plant has a spreading diffuse 

 habit, and forms neat little bushes 

 about a foot high. The plant may be 

 raised as freely as any annual, sown 

 in frames or on a gentle hot-bed, in 

 March or early in April; when put 

 out in April in free sandy soil in a 

 sunny spot, it flowers abundantly from 

 early summer to late autumn. I 

 probably should not have mentioned 

 it in this book, had I not met with it 

 in North Italy adorning some rocks 

 on which it had become naturalised. 

 Although often treated as an annual, it 

 is a perennial on soils and in positions 

 where not destroyed by wet and frost. 



WAHLENBERGIA. Dwarf and 

 pretty alpine plants of the harebell 

 family, but a little more alpine in 

 nature, and perhaps a little more 

 difficult of cultivation, as, to succeed 

 well, they require some of the choicest 

 spots on the rock-garden. Mr F. W. 

 Meyer, of Exeter, who has been very 

 successful with this family, writes of 

 them in the Garden : 



"According to my experience, none 

 of them succeed if planted on flat 

 ground, but if planted into an upright 

 or sloping fissure, with the roots in a 

 horizontal, instead of a vertical posi- 

 tion, success is certain, if the plants 

 receive an abundance of sunshine. 

 There are fast-growing and slow-grow- 

 ing varieties, but, with the exception 

 of planting the dwarfest kinds closer 

 together, I make no difference in the 

 treatment. 



"The rock on which I grew them 



best, which is facing south-east, was 

 composed of pieces of limestone so ar- 

 ranged as to leave between them long, 

 almost perpendicular, crevices 2 inches 

 or 3 inches wide, and from 2 feet to 

 2j feet in depth. These crevices were 

 filled with plenty of broken stones for 

 drainage, and before filling in the soil 

 the lowest visible or outward part of 

 a crevice was closed up by a small 

 wedge-shaped stone, held in place by 

 a kind of mortar made of clay and 

 Sphagnum Moss, mixed with a very 

 small quantity of soil. The small 

 stones, acting as drainage, would be 

 on a lower level and in the inside part 

 of the crevice. By means of more 

 'mortar' and more small stones, the 

 outside part of the fissure is now built 

 up to the height where it is desired 

 the first plant should be, and simul- 

 taneously the inside part of the crevice 

 is filled to the same height with a 

 mixture of loam, leaf-mould, small 

 broken stones (limestone), and stony 

 grit. The plant is then inserted with 

 its roots in a horizontal position, and 

 more of the stony soil is filled in and 

 rammed around and between the roots 

 with a small stick. On each side of 

 the neck of the plant a small stone 

 is next driven into the crevice in 

 such a manner as not in any way to 

 injure the roots, but to take the 

 pressure of other small stones used 

 for building up the front of the crevice 

 above the first plant, say to the height 

 of 10 inches or a foot in precisely the 

 same way as was done below the first 

 plant ; the second plant is then 

 introduced, and in the same way a 

 third or fourth plant may be added, 

 according to the height of the fissure 

 or the size of the plants, but care must 

 be taken not to use the clay mixture 

 as mortar above the last plant, as the 

 more or less impervious clay would 





