CHAPTER III 



THE CULTIVATION OF ALPINE PLANTS 



THE culture of Alpine and rock plants as a hobby is increasing 

 by leaps and bounds. We remarked a year ago that nothing was 

 more indicative of this increasing fashion than the number of books 

 issued in recent years on the subject, and the amount of space 

 devoted to it in horticultural journals. Since then several more 

 books have appeared, including a practical and prettily illustrated 

 little volume on Rock Gardens and Alpine Plants by Mr. E. H. 

 Jenkins, who has had much experience in the making of rockeries 

 and the management of Alpine and other hardy plants. 



In Mr. Flemwell's last volume, The Flower-fields of Alpine 

 Switzerland, the latter portion of that beautifully illustrated work 

 was devoted to a plea for the formation of Alpine fields in England, 

 and some very plausible arguments were advanced for the intro- 

 duction of Swiss pasture and meadow plants into grassland as an 

 adjunct to our rock-gardens. It was also proposed to decorate 

 with Alpine flowers not only some of our parks and public places, 

 but it was suggested that many a wayside field, copse, bank or 

 railway-cutting might be improved ' by taking a leaf from Nature's 

 Alpine book.' 



Theoretically such an idea is excellent, and it is true that many 

 of the handsome sub-alpine plants of the Swiss meadows and open 

 woods would figure largely in any such scheme ; and that some of 

 these flowers of the lower mountains have been neglected by 

 gardeners. Some horticulturists are ready to look kindly only upon 

 anything that will grow on a rock, and to call it ' Alpine ' ; and 

 certain small Alpine meadow and pasture plants frequently planted 

 on dry rockeries in England languish and die because they are out 

 of their natural habitat. 



For the suggestion that a small field or enclosure adjacent to a 

 rock-garden should be converted, with skill and taste, into an 

 Alpine pasture, we have nothing but praise ; and it has already 

 been successfully done by several gentlemen. It is only fitting that 

 a large rock-work should, where practicable, be completed or 

 supplemented by an ' Alp ' or small field where numerous meadow 

 and woodland plants could be established and grown to advantage. 

 But, we say let it stop there, and chiefly for this reason. If many 



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