8 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



background to Paeonia Moutan. Here the European 

 Tree-Paeonies, and even the Orientals, may thrive and be 

 glorious ; but they will be far more congruous and beau- 

 tiful against a mossy rock or some quiet curtain of leaves. 

 Por green (I wish this were as generally realised as it is 

 generally ignored) is a far more enhancing background 

 than glare. Some of the commoner Michaelmas Daisies, 

 leaden, dull, and utterly boring in the border, become 

 perfectly beautiful, lucent, clear, and purely blue when 

 planted out in the grass. And beyond this, the only 

 requirement of the Tree-Paeony is repeated heavy feeding 

 with the richest of manure — incongruous as such treat- 

 ment may seem for such sylph-sounding creatures as 

 Hope of Glory, Moonfoam, Clouds at Dawn, Fire-Flash, 

 Leaping Lion, Bridal Dream. 



Another shrub for the big rock-garden whose treat- 

 ment I believe, on no authority of mine, to be generally 

 mistaken, is the great Californian Tree- Poppy, not alto- 

 gether unlike Paeonia Moutan., white-flowered, on a smaller, 

 frailer, freer scale of flower, and a larger, lusher scale of 

 growth. Romneya Coulteri is usually cultivated under a 

 wall. It is so that I have always grown it, with the 

 most persistent disappointment. Every year it came up 

 ranker and more rank, and, in late summer, made abun- 

 dance of buds, which developed sporadically into flower 

 one at a time, ^producing no eflect, and passing away 

 frustrate, before the advance of autumn frosts. Nothins 



o 



I could do seemed of any avail. I protected the old 

 wood, and I cut it off — with equal futility. Romneya 

 Coulteri was written down a failure. It was only last 

 winter, when the key was given me, that I remembered 

 my first impression of the plant as a rounded, open- 

 ground bush in Mr. Woodall's garden at Scarborough, 

 white with its huge filmy blossoms from crown to base. 

 And now information received leads me to understand 



