172 ROCK GARDENING FOR AMATEURS 



that this plant has to be propagated by seed. To prevent 

 cross fertilisation of the flowers, which readily takes place 

 when other kinds are growing near, a piece of gauze should 

 be placed over the flowers selected for seed. Seeds are 

 best sown in spring, in gritty soil. The pots should be 

 placed in a frame that is slightly heated ; if this is not 

 available a cold frame will do as well, but the seeds will 

 take a little longer to come up. The seedlings require 

 careful attention, and must be pricked off singly into 

 very small pots as soon as they are large enough to 

 handle. Loamy soil with plenty of grit and broken 

 stones, bricks, or crocks will do. All the members of 

 this section need a similar soil. 



MOSSY SAXIFRAGES 



The Mossy Saxifrages are ideal plants for amateurs ; 

 they form perfect little carpets of evergreen that quickly 

 spread over the ground or cover the stones with exquisitely 

 close-tufted verdure, which, in spring and early summer, 

 becomes jewelled with little rounded blooms in pink, 

 white or red. Most of them are easy to grow, and they 

 are less fastidious as to soil than many other rock-garden 

 flowers. Ordinary well-drained loamy ground, with which 

 some grit or pieces of stone have been mixed, suits them 

 admirably, and they prefer half-shade to full sunshine. 

 Often enough they are happy in ordinary garden soil 

 on some partially shaded slope in the rock garden, though 

 in ground that gets sodden in the winter the tufts are 

 liable to decay and lose that compactness and neatness 



