54 ALPINE FLOWERS. Part I. 



small, ambitious or hmiible, require some kind of garden in 

 which to carry them out. We will next consider the case of the 

 owners of those limited sites for gardens — ^window sills. On these 

 numbers of diminutive and interesting aLpine plants may be 

 easily grown. My first proposal is to pick out some of the 

 prettiest and most diverse of the Stonecrops, Houseleeks, silvery 

 Saxifrages, &c., to plant them in a goodly-sized box, and use a 

 few rough stones by way of miniature rocks. I would place the 

 box or boxes in the full sun, and give them plenty of water from 

 a rose in warm spring and summer weather, and, indeed, at all 

 times when they are dry, which is not likely to occur often 

 during the dull months of winter. Among and between the 

 alpine plants I would in autumn pop in here and there a dimi- 

 nutive spring-flowering bulb — say Bulbocodium vernum, Scilla 

 sibirica and bifolia, small Daffodils, Snowdrops, Snowflakes ; 

 and, if the box was large, a few of the delicately coloured 

 Crocuses. The boxes should never be taken indoors, except 

 to re-arrange or refresh. When the snow comes, the plants 

 are comfortable, as it is their natural protection in a wild 

 state ; frost or rain hurts them not,*^ and even London smut 

 is not able to destroy their little lives, tolerably attended to. 

 The boxes most suitable for this purpose are wooden ones, 

 with zinc troughs, decorated externally with clippings of oak 

 and apple trees, fir cones, &c., or what may be called archie 

 tectural boxes, of wood also, but painted stone-colour exter- 

 nally, and designed so as to suit buildings, which the rustic 

 ones do not, Both these boxes are made in good form by 

 various firms in London and elsewhere. No matter what kind 

 of box is adopted, it is desirable to allow some plants of 

 a trailing habit to fall over its outer edge. If the outer mar- 

 gins of the boxes were well covered, it would matter little 

 what form were adopted. The common Stonecrop, Sedum 

 Sieboldii, Thymus lanuginosus, the woolly-leaved Cerastiums, 

 and many other hardy plants, will do this effectively. 



A yet more satisfactory window rock-garden can be made out- 

 side of a window to which light has free access, by forming a 

 miniature alpine garden on the sill. It is simply done by 

 putting a few irregular stones along the front margin, and 

 packing a few small bits of turfy peat or loam inside them 

 to prevent the fine soil, afterwards to be added, from being 

 washed out. Then fill in the hollow with sandy loam, mixed, if 



