24 ALPINE FLOWERS. Part I. 



the country, that he has had it in perfect health on a sunny rock 

 for the last fourteen years, and without the least protection. It 

 is reasonable to assume that many ferns which in a wild state 

 frequent half-shady spots would, in our colder cUme, flourish 

 best if permitted to enjoy all the sun of our cloudy skies, while 

 ferns that inhabit sunny rocks in countries not much warmer 

 than our own should always have the warmest positions we can 

 give them on the rockwork. And in the case of the species 

 that require shade, it is quite possible to grow them in recesses 

 in the rock-garden and in deep passages or miniature ravines 

 leading through it, even if a portion be not specially designed 

 as a fernery. Some small species and varieties may be used 

 in any aspect as a graceful setting to flowering plants. The 

 general subject of hardy fern culture is so well understood that 

 there is no necessity of adverting to it here. Among the select 

 lists, one of the ferns that thrive best in open exposed places 

 may meet the wants of some, but where the fernery is specially 

 designed as a part of the rock-garden, there is no necessity for 

 any selection, as all kinds, from the Killarney fern to the Os- 

 mundas, may then be grown. 



Popular and almost universally cultivated as hardy ferns are, 

 however, it is not at all common to see some of the most noble 

 and interesting of them — the Royal Fern and several other 

 Osmundas — otherwise than, in a shabby, or at best in a half- 

 developed, condition. Mr. A. Parsons, of Danesbury, a well- 

 known florist and cultivator of ferns, has overcome this difficulty, 

 and narrates his marked success in the pages of the ' Florist and 

 Pomologist.' He formed a very large fernery in an old chalk 

 pit, and with much success ; but, notwithstanding all the care 

 taken of the Osmundas and alHed ferns, they were tried for four 

 seasons with no satisfactory result, the roots of the surrounding 

 trees robbing them of both soil and water. " A change was 

 then made : a piece of ground, of irregular shape, large enough 

 to contain about twenty plants, was staked out, and the mould', or, 

 more correctly speaking, the chalk, was removed to the depth of 

 three feet ; a bricklayer followed, and put in a floor of three 

 bricks laid on the flat, set in good Portland cement, and over 

 that a layer of plain tiles, the sides being made up to the ground 

 level with a four-and-a-half-inch wall, well built up in the same 

 kind of cement ; this made the whole water-tight, and prevented 

 the roots of the surrounding trees from penetrating and robbing 



