CHAPTER IV 



SOME ALPINE GARDENS 1 



BOTANIC gardens are increasing in numbers in the Alps, just as 

 rock gardens are becoming more and more numerous in the British 

 Isles. The most recent of the Swiss Alpine gardens is that at 

 Rigi Scheidegg, at about 5400 feet, which was opened by Professor 

 Carl Schroeter, of Zurich, in July, 1909, and of which Dr. Bachman, 

 of the Lucerne Gymnasium, is the Director. The German-Swiss 

 have taken the lead from Monsieur H. Correvon and his Geneva 

 friends in starting these interesting and useful mountain gardens. 



Monsieur Correvon was the President of the Association for the 

 Protection of Plants, founded in Geneva in 1883 to struggle against 

 the destruction of the Alpine flora ; but in 1908 the Association 

 was amalgamated with the Swiss League for the Protection of 

 Natural Beauty, which corresponds in many respects to our 

 Selborne Society. 



It is wall-culture that the Swiss understand perhaps better than 

 most people ; and Monsieur Correvon, at Chene Bourg, near 

 Geneva, has a low wall which is a perfect paradise of interesting 

 and rare saxatile flowers in early summer. We have also seen the 

 famous wall at Valleyres, at the foot of the Jura, in Canton Vaud, 

 which Boissier made in 1856, and where he cultivated some of the 

 best Saxifrages and rock Primulas, including a very fine patch of 

 Saxifraga Kotschyi from Asia Minor. They are still thriving, for 

 his son-in-law, Monsieur William Barbey, has taken the same 

 interest in the plants, and does all he can to cherish and extend 

 the work started by his illustrious relative. 



The town of Geneva has planted many wall-plants on what 

 remains of the old fortifications, and these are doing well. Some 

 of the mountain railway companies have also decorated the walls 

 bordering their railways with rock-plants, which tend greatly to 

 brighten the scene in spring and early summer. 



The oldest of the gardens in the Swiss Alps is the LINNJEA, on 

 a hillock which dominates the quaint village of Bourg St. Pierre, the 

 last village on the road to the great St. Bernard Hospice. It was 

 founded in 1889, with Professor Chodat of Geneva as President 



1 Some of these notes are based upon articles by the author already published 

 (sometimes anonymously) in the Gardeners' Chronicle. 



23 



