TENDER BEDDING PLANTS 335 



They may have cool treatment as soon as they are rooted, as 

 nothing is gained by pushing them on through the winter. If 

 preferred, old stock plants may be kept in a cool house during 

 the winter, and cuttings from them struck on a hotbed or in a 

 propagator in spring : 



The following are good varieties : 



Blue Perfection. 



Compactum nanum album. White. 



Imperial Dwarf Blue. 



ALTERNANTHERAS 



When carpet bedding was in vogue the Alternantheras were 

 very popular indeed, they were practically indispensable to those 

 who indulged in garden mosaics, owing to their neat, dwarf growth 

 and to the beautiful colouring of their leaves. And carpet bedding 

 was very much in vogue in the latter half of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury. One read of carpet beds in many important gardens, and 

 saw them in the public parks. They have died out of the former 

 entirely, but one stiil comes upon isolated examples in the smaller 

 provincial parks. 



In the heyday of its popularity carpet bedding was never prac- 

 tised by the majority of amateur gardeners, and there were good 

 practical reasons for this. In the first place, there was the prepara- 

 tion of the designs a tedious and laborious business, of very little 

 value as mental training. One could imagine a student of geo- 

 metrical drawing finding interest in such a task, but no one else. 

 Then there was the preparation of the requisite plants, and that 

 was no light task, since in an elaborate design several kinds of 

 a particular character had to be chosen, mostly such as required 

 glass accommodation. Then there was the slow process of plant- 

 ing, which had to be done with as much accuracy as the laying 

 down of a tiled floor. Finally, there was the periodical cropping 



