PERENNIALS AND ALPINES, AS BEDDING PLANTS. 3.7 

 CHAPTER V. 



HARDY PERENNIALS AND ALPINES, AS BEDDING PLANTS. 



THE desirability of using- as many hardy plants as possible in our 

 " bedding" arrangements is beginning to be fully recognised. That 

 the practice will save horticulturists some trouble and much expense 

 there can be no doubt, and still less of its adding much to the 

 interest and variety of the flower garden. We have as yet merely 

 dipped into the rich mine of hardy plants with a view to finding fit 

 subjects for bedding-out; what has been done seems merely the 

 result of chance, and doubtless a full examination of the qualities of 

 the great number of hardy herbaceous and Alpine plants that may 

 be grown with ease in our climate at all seasons, will yield a good 

 result. There is one fact that I wish particularly to point out to all 

 who are interested in hardy bedding plants (and who is not?), and 

 that is, that not a few of them bloom much longer much more like 

 bedding plants, in fact if fresh planted every year. The fact that 

 a plant is quite hardy does not justify us in leaving it alone for years, 

 if by a contrary course we may produce an end that many desire 

 long continued bloom. Much, or nearly all, of the continuity of 

 bloom displayed by ordinary bedding plants, is the result of the 

 fresh planting of young subjects every year. Suppose our climate 

 suffered Geraniums, Calceolarias, &c., to live through the winter, 

 would their second year's bloom be anything like what we are now 

 accustomed to ? I think not. Their bloom would " come to a head," 

 and perish quickly, much like that of many herbaceous plants. 

 Therefore, if we expect hardy plants to give us a long continued 

 bloom, we must treat them, in a great number of instances, pretty 

 much the same as tender " bedding plants," i.e., plant afresh every 

 season. This particularly applies to such things as Viola cornuta, 

 which has proved itself so useful as an ornamental bedding plant. Of 

 course it will best apply to subjects that grow and root quickly, and 

 that flower in proportion to the vigour and continuity of their growth. 

 Therefore the way to succeed with hardy perennial bedding plants is, 

 as a general rule, to take them up when the tender bedding plants 

 are removed in autumn, and divide and put them in stock in some snug 

 nursery beds of finely -pulverized earth, where they may remain till 

 the following spring, when they may be put in the positions designed 



