60 THE STORY OF MY ROCK GARDEN 



themselves thoroughly " at home " here in my little 

 garden, and most welcome they are, since the majority 

 of them come into flower very early in the year, and 

 few require any special treatment other than the 

 gritty soil and good drainage, which is sure to be found 

 in an Alpine garden, such as I have described. 



Many of these plants have inconspicuous grass-like 

 foliage, which soon dries up and disappears, and is not 

 to any extent unsightly, when later in the season 

 surrounding plants are in their hey-day. My 

 practice is to plant many of them about clumps of 

 Aubrietia, some of the dwarf sedums and mossy Saxi- 

 frages, and very charming they look rising from such a 

 carpet which not only acts as a foil to them in colour, 

 but also prevents the soil from being splashed on to 

 them by heavy rain. 



Both bulbs and carpeting plants appear to be 

 perfectly happy in each other's company, and the 

 former in most cases reproduce themselves, both by 

 seed and division, so that after a few years, instead of 

 a number of single flowers some little distance apart, 

 the garden is strewn with irregular-shaped drifts of 

 these pretty early visitors, giving a delightfully natural 

 appearance to the whole place. 



One of the earliest of these bulbous plants to flower 

 with me (soon after Christmas) is that sweet little 

 Narcissus Bulbocodiumv. monophyllus the white Hoop- 



