30 HAEDY FLOWERS. 



replanting firmly, deep down to near the collar, is an excellent 

 remedy. 



There are many plants which demand to be permanently esta- 

 blished, with which an entirely different course must be pursued, 

 Spigelia marilandica^ Gentiana vema, G. J)avarica } and Cypripedium 

 spectdbiUj for example. The Gentians are very rarely well grown, 

 and yet few will fail to grow them if they procure in the first instance 

 strong- established plants ; pot them carefully and firmly in good 

 sandy loam, well drained, using bits of grit or gravel in the soil ; 

 plunge them in sand or coal-ashes to the rim, in a position fully 

 exposed to the sun, and give them abundance of water during the 

 spring and summer months, taking, of course, all necessary precau- 

 tions against worms, slugs, and weeds. And such will be found to 

 be the case with many other rare and fine alpine plants. The best 

 position in which to grow the plants would be some open spot near 

 the working sheds, where they could be plunged in coal-ashes, and 

 be under the eye at all times. And as they should show the public 

 what the beauty of hardy plants really is, so should they be grown 

 entirely in the open air in spring and summer. To save the pots 

 and pans from cracking with frost, it would in many cases be desi- 

 rable to plunge them in shallow cold frames, or cradles, with a 

 northern exposure in winter ; but in the case of the kinds that die 

 down in winter, a few inches of some light covering thrown over the 

 pots, when the tops of the plants have perished, would form a 

 sufficient protection. 



Alpine and herbaceous plants in pots, and kept in the open air 

 all the winter, are best plunged in a porous material on a porous 

 bottom, and on the north side of a hedge or wall, where they would 

 be less liable to change of temperature, or to be excited into growth 

 at that season. 



For growing the Androsaces and some rare Saxifrages a modifica- 

 tion of the common pot may be employed with a good result. It is 

 effected by cutting a piece out of the side of the pot, one and a half 

 or two inches deep. The head of the plant potted in this way is 

 placed outside of the pot, leaning over the edge of the oblong 

 opening, its roots within in the ordinary way, among sand, grit, 

 stones, &c. Thus water cannot lie about the necks of the plants to 

 their destruction, which undoubtedly is an advantage for delicate 

 tufted plants liable to perish from this cause. I first observed this 

 method in M. Boissier's garden, near Lausanne, in 1868. The pots 



