30 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



experiments. Last year I hurled out all the old green- 

 house Cyclamens — huge lumping old corms — on to a 

 light-soiled bank beneath the shelter of thickly planted 

 deciduous honeysuckles. They all lived and continued 

 to thrive, though the weather, for the next six weeks, was 

 nothing short of appalling. More than a year has passed, 

 and it looks as if some of them might yet live awhile. 

 This, of course, is a platitude in warm Cornwall, but a 

 paradox in frost-swept Yorkshire Alps. And such experi- 

 ments cost little ; one tries, perhaps, the corpora vilia of 

 superfluous plants. And then what is the amazed joy of 

 success ! In this last autumn I threw away, in a pet, a 

 worthless plant of Odontoglossum crispum, vexed at having 

 overlooked it when disposing of my third-raters a week or 

 two before. Frost was ruling at the time, and next day 

 I regretted the cowardly brutality of my action. So I 

 went and quested for my victim, set on making amends. 

 And there, on the frozen grass, I found the dispotted 

 Odontoglossum still alive and well. This changed my 

 plans ; I took it up and planted it in the rockery, in a 

 sheltered corner, near the protecting shade of Cistus 

 laurifolius. It was an absurd experiment, but I could 

 not resist the temptation of trying it. Of course the poor 

 thing ultimately died, but I solemnly declare and affirm 

 that there, in the open, Odontoglossiim crispum held out 

 for a solid three weeks, during which time rain and 

 tempest alternated with bitter frost, and the temperature 

 was generally down to goodness knows where at night. 



Of all evergreen flowering shrubs though, for the rock- 

 garden, great and small, the enormous race which we call 

 Rhododendron (exclusive of Azalea) is the most august. 

 Here, again, I am stumped by the impossibility of elimi- 

 nating lime from my soil. However, I have induced no 

 fewer than three of the Himalyans to thrive — though, 

 started as tiny plants, they have not yet flowered. These 



