CHAPTER m 



THE GARDEN OF ALPINES 



In the true Alpine garden will be found only such plants 

 as are indigenous to the Alps. The mixed flora of the 

 rock garden, containing as it does plants from many 

 different sources, here gives place to that of a definite 

 character. This does not imply that our choice is unduly 

 restricted, or that Alpine gardens must be of necessity 

 monotonous. Only in the very largest places could 

 anything like the full number of available plants be 

 included. As for variety, it is endless — evergreen 

 shrubs, exquisite miniatures of lowland kinds, brilliant 

 mosses, lilies, dwarf trailing plants, orchids and ferns, to 

 mention but a few of the types of Alpine plant life which 

 are perfectly at home in English gardens. To know 

 this charming race of plants is to wish their further 

 acquaintance, and when once they have been seen in 

 their native haunts, the desire to grow at least a few of 

 them is inevitable. 



Unfortunately, though there are many large and im- 

 portant collections of Alpines, there are but few Alpine 

 gardens. We hear of " collections " numbering so many 

 distinct varieties; one has a plant which another has not; 

 a difficult kind has been coaxed into flower, in another 

 garden it has failed altogether. There is something 

 almost pathetic in the appearance of these Alpine show- 

 places. Single plants dotted here and there, pegs and 

 labels, more obtrusive than the flowers themselves, 

 bell-jars and cover glasses to nurture the weaklings — 



