SPRING GARDENS. 169 



grow, the white Arabis, even more grown in northern France than in 

 England (it well deserves to be spread about in sheets and effective 

 groups), and the beautiful purple Rock Cresses (Aubrietia), lovely 

 plants of the mountains of Greece and the countries near, which have 

 developed a number of varieties even more beautiful in colour than 

 the wild kinds. Nothing for gardens can be more precious than 

 these plants, the long spring bloom being effective in almost every 

 kind of flower gardening banks, walls, edgings, borders of evergreen, 

 rock plants, or carpets beneath sparsely set shrubs. The white ever- 

 green Candytufts are also effective plants in clear sheets for borders, 

 edgings to beds, tops of walls, and the rougher flanks of the rock 

 garden. These are among the plants that have been set out in hard 

 lines in flower gardens, but it is easy to have better effects from them 

 in groups, and even in broken lines and masses, or as carpets beneath 

 bushes,. thus giving softer and more beautiful, if less definite, effects. 

 Happy always on castle wall and rocks, the Wallflower is most wel- 

 come in the garden, where, on warm soils and in genial climates, it 

 does well, but hard winters injure it often in cold and inland districts, 

 and it is almost like a tender plant in such conditions. Yet it must 

 ever be one of the flowers best worth growing in sheltered and warm 

 gardens ; and even in cold places one may have a few under the eaves 

 of cottages and on dry south borders. It is where large masses of it 

 are grouped in the open and are stricken as the greens of the garden 

 are stricken in cold winters, that we have to regret having given it 

 labour and a place which might have been better devoted to things 

 hardy everywhere. The various old double Wallflowers are somewhat 

 tender too and rarely seen in good character, save in favoured soils, 

 which is all the more reason for making the most of them where the 

 soil and air favour them. Certain allies of the Wallflower, moun- 

 tain plants for the most part, such as the alpine Wallflower, also give 

 good effects where well done and grouped on dry banks or warm 

 borders. 



THE WlNDFLOWERS are a noble group among the most beautiful 

 of the northern and eastern flowers, some being easily naturalised 

 (like the blue Italian and Greek Anemones), while the showy Poppy 

 Anemones are easily grown where the soils are light and warm, and 

 in genial warm districts ; but they require some care on certain 

 soils, and are among the plants we must cultivate and even protect 

 on cold soils in hard winters. The same is true of the brilliant 

 Asiatic Ranunculus and all its varied forms Persian, Turkish, and 

 French, as they may be called, all forms of one wild North African 

 buttercup, unhappily too tender to endure our winters in the 

 open air, but they should be abundantly grown on the warm 

 limestone and other soils which suit them, as about our coasts 



