28 HARDY FLO WEES. 



the same families. What would become of our shows if the same 

 tactics were carried out in other classes ? Even the most successful 

 exhibitors are apt to look about, a day or so before a show, for the 

 best flowering cuttings of such things as Iberis correcefolia, and, 

 sticking four or five of these into a pot, present that as a " specimen." 

 Now, what is so easily grown into the neatest of specimens as an 

 Iberis ? By merely plunging in the ground a few six-inch pots 

 filled with rich soil, and putting in them a few young cutting plants, 

 they would, " left to nature," be good specimens in a short time, 

 while with a little pinching, and feeding, and pegging-down, they 

 would soon be fit to grace any exhibition. So it is with many other 

 things of like habit and size the dwarf shrubby Lithospermum 

 prostratum, for example ; a little time and the simplest skill will do 

 all that is required. Such subjects as the foregoing, with tiny 

 shrubs like Andromeda tetragona and A.fastigiata, the Menziesias and 

 GaultheriaprocumbenSj the choicer Helianthemums and dwarf Phloxes, 

 and many others enumerated in the selections of exhibition plants at 

 the end of this volume, might be found pretty enough to satisfy 

 even the most fastidious growers of New Holland plants. 



The very grass is not more easily grown than plants like Iberises 

 and Aubrietias, yet to ensure their being worthy of a place, they 

 ought to be at least a year in pots so as to secure well-furnished 

 plants. Such vigorous subjects, to merit the character of being well 

 grown, should fall luxuriantly over the edge of the pots, and in all 

 cases as much as possible of the crockeryware should be hidden. 

 The dwarf and spreading habit of many of this class of plants would 

 render this a matter of no difficulty. In some cases it would be 

 desirable to put a number of cuttings or young rooted plants into 

 six-inch pots, so as to form specimens quickly. Pots of six inches 

 diameter suit well for growing many subjects of this intermediate 

 type ; and with good culture, and a little liquid manure, it would be 

 quite possible to get a large development of plant in such a compa- 

 ratively small pot; but if very large specimens were desired, a size 

 larger might be resorted to. 



To descend from the type that seems to present the greatest 

 number of neat and attractive flowering plants to the cultivator, we 

 will next deal with the dwarf race of hardy succulents, and the 

 numerous minute alpine plants that associate with them in size a 

 class rich in merit and strong in numbers. These should, as a rule, 

 be grown and shown in pans : they are often so pretty and singular 



