PLANTS FOR POOR SOILS 195 



Other sand-loving pLants with whitish leaves are 

 Lavender-cotton {Santolina chamcecyparissus) and Cine- 

 raria maritima. This beautiful plant, with its deeply- 

 cut foliage of silvery grey, is unhappily not generally 

 hardy, though it will stand through the milder of our 

 winters ; but it is easily grown from seed. 



Light, sandy ground is of a dry, warm nature, and 

 many southern plants that rot away with damp in 

 stronger soils survive and thrive in it. Acanthus in its 

 several varieties is grand in full sun, and nothing can 

 be happier than the beautiful Alstromerias of Chile, 

 or that finest shrub of comparatively recent introduc- 

 tion, the Mexican Orange-flower (Choisya ternata). 

 The giant Grasses from Japan, Eulalia japonica striata 

 and E. zehrina, do grandly, and when after a year or 

 two they have grown into strong plants, are very 

 handsome, and combine extremely well with many 

 kinds of flowers. I have them in the borders of 

 Michaelmas Daisies as well as in the larger flower 

 border. The tall Avhite Asphodel of the Mediter- 

 ranean region is also happy in the warm sand, and 

 so is the dwarfer yellow kind ; and nothing can do 

 better than the grand Mulleins, Verhascum olympicum 

 and V. phlomoides. 



The large garden Thistles are magnificent — the 

 great silvery Onopordon eight feet high, and its 

 relative 0. ardbicum of still greater stature ; also 

 the Milk Thistle (Silyhum Marianum) ; they look 

 their best in rough ground or on sandy mounds, and 



