SECTION XII 



Hardy and Half-hardy Herbaceous 

 Plants, Bulbs, and Flowers 



In growing hardy and half-hardy plants for sale the market gardener 

 or nurseryman is guided by business instincts as to what will pay best, and 

 not by sentiment. He crops his ground to the best advantage, planting in 

 long straight rows when possible, to economize space, and so that he may 

 have plants of any particular crop under his hand in bulk when he wishes to 

 lift them. He cannot waste time running from one place to another for an 

 odd plant, nor can he afford to waste space on any plant that will not sell 

 fairly quickly, no matter how beautiful it may be in his own estimation. 

 There is no attempt at landscape effect, the main object in view being to 

 grow the plants as quickly as possible and sell them at the best price. For 

 many kinds of hardy plants ordinary garden soil is quite good enough, and 

 the more deeply it is cultivated, and the better manured, the better the 

 results. In these days of keen competition, when plant growing has become 

 a fashion with many more or less wealthy people, the man who produces 

 the finest plants at a reasonable rate is the one who takes the lion's share 

 of the receipts; while he who thinks that the old slovenly methods of his 

 great-grandfather's days are quite good enough for modern cultural work 

 must be content with prices that scarcely enable him to live. 



For the cultivation of alpine and rock plants the ordinary soil of the 

 garden may not be suitable, and it is generally more convenient for selling 

 purposes to grow most of these plants in pots, and often in frames instead 

 of planting them out. Supplies of peat, loam, sand, and leaf mould are 

 therefore essential to the grower of special classes of plants, and it is not 

 unnatural that he should look for higher prices for his labour and his 

 produce. While it is not necessary to refer in detail to more or less scarce 

 plants, those of the highest commercial value are more fully dealt with in 

 this section. It is possible, however, that the rare plant of to-day may be 

 the popular one of to-morrow. 



Acsena. A genus of pretty little rock plants with trailing stems, 

 deeply toothed pinnate leaves, and small flowers. They are quite hardy 

 VOL. II i 16 



