English Effects With Alpine Flowers— By wilhelm Miller, ?:r, 



ROCK GARDENING A UNIVERSAL PASSION IN ENGLAND AND WILL BECOME SO HERE — MOST OF THE 

 SHOWIEST FLOWERS EASV TO GROW EVEN WITHOUT ROCKS— JUNE A GOOD TIME TO START 



[Editor's Note — This is the sixth of twelve articles that explain how we waste about $1,000,000 a year in trying to copy English effects literally and how we can get the spirit of 

 them with long-lived material. Previous articles have dealt with conifers, trees, shrubs, broad-leaved evergreens, and bedding plants, etc. Future articles will deal with perennials, 

 bulbs, vines, edging plants, etc.] 



ROCK gardening is a universal passion 

 in England, and no wonder, for 

 the alpine flowers are the real "gems" of 

 the floral world. They are as small as 

 jewels and have the same purity of color, 

 and in spite of their diminutive size they 

 are showy, because they have a genius for 

 spreading so as to form great sheets of 

 bloom. 



For thirteen years I had been dreaming of 

 English rock gardens and reading articles 

 about them in English papers, yet I was 

 totally unprepared for the immense number 

 of them and the radiant visions of beauty 

 which they present. I had seen nearly all 

 the important rock gardens in America, and 

 knew there were only two notable ones out- 

 side of botanical gardens. So I supposed 

 that rock gardening was merely a hobby 

 for a few skilled amateurs and collectors. 

 On the contrary, it seemed as if everyone 

 had a rock garden, and the mass effects, 

 while they last, are brilliant beyond anything 

 we know or can imagine. 



At first I touched the stars, as everyone 

 does who sees a collection of alpines for 

 the first time. The ground is carpeted with 

 jewels, such as Ali Baba never saw. Speech 

 seems a poor thing. You are far above 

 mere names of plants and botany. You 

 wander about, half seeing new forms 

 and drinking great drafts of ambrosial 

 color until the mind can hold no more, and 

 you put your hands over your eyes to 

 shut out the splendor of this new wonder- 

 world. 



Soon comes a sorrowful reaction. Every- 

 one says: "You Americans can never repro- 

 duce these effects on a large scale. Your 

 summers are too hot and dry. It is the 



cool, moist summer of England that suits 

 these mountain flowers to perfection." 



I felt, as thousands of Americans before 

 me have felt, that it was an impossible 

 proposition, and I tried to renounce all 

 this beauty, for I was on a practical mission. 

 But each new rock garden caused a fresh 

 pang and fresh dejection until I was ready 

 to quit England in despair. 



But one day at Kew I noticed how many 

 of the most beautiful flowers in that famous 

 rocky dell were native to America and the 

 thought came, " if England can grow and 

 love our mountain flowers, why cannot we? " 

 Then I began to ask every gardener, "which 

 flowers can stand the hottest sunshine on 

 the barest rocks," and found a goodly num- 

 ber of them. These two classes of plants 

 alone seemed to me enough to justify an 

 American style of rock gardening. 



But the biggest fact of all never came 

 to me until I got back home and had 

 a chance to study our own books and cata- 

 logues. Most of the showiest rock-loving 

 flowers are so easy to cultivate that anyone 



In a small range of coldframes like this you can 

 grow many thousand alpine plants from seed 



can grow them in an ordinary border without 

 any rocks at all! And practically all the 

 difficult kinds which English enthusiasts 

 grow any American can enjoy if he will 

 go to the expense of a really first-class 

 rockery. 



So I say boldly the old pessimistic attitude 

 is dead wrong! Rock gardening will be- 

 come a great institution here. Our hot, 

 dry summer will not prevent rock gardening, 

 but will give it a beautiful new American 

 character. I am sure of it for two reasons. 

 We have the spirit and we have the plants. 

 We all want the best there is, and certainly 

 there are no flowers more beautiful than 

 alpines. 



England herself used to be equally pessi- 

 mistic about her own ability to grow alpines, 

 and her .wonderful enthusiasm of to-day 

 has come within the memory of the present 

 generation. English authorities used to 

 say that alpine flowers cannot be grown in 

 the lowlands. Certainly the climate of 

 England is quite unlike that of the Alps. 

 In Switzerland the flowers are protected 

 from alternate freezing and thawing by the 

 snow; in England they are not. Yet there 

 are few alpine flowers worth having that 

 are not now grown in England. 



We, too, are handicapped by changeable 

 winters and hot summers, but we can find 

 plenty of charming alpines that will stand 

 both. For instance, here are some flowers 

 that grow wild on the Alps but are so com- 

 mon in gardens that we never think of 

 them as alpine plants — the snowdrop, 

 daffodil, poet's narcissus, trailing myrtle, 

 Christmas rose, lily-of-the-valley, Scotch 

 pink, common columbine, and English 

 daisy. You may think that these are too 



The wrong way is to use many large rocks, and expose freshly broken surfaces 

 instead of weathered and mossy ones 



The right way to make an alpine garden is to design a picture, use few rocks 

 and make them inconspicuous 



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