318 



The Garden Magazine, February, 1922 





on account of the need for perfect drainage at the roots it is 

 always well to place the plants either on rock-work, or on 

 thoroughly drained ground, or else upon walls. 



In the English horticultural press, more than forty years ago, 

 I recommended that walls be planted with rock-loving plants; 

 and that the delicate kinds, hitherto found impossible to main- 

 tain in good health, be planted in perpendicular walls. Those 

 who tried my suggestion met with success, notably Miss Jekyll, 

 who saw an example of this method of cultivation in my garden 

 and championed it. 



s 



Conditions Under Which They Thrive 



NOW plays a prominent and influential part in the existence 

 of this highly specialized vegetation. In the icy regions, 

 organized life is ruled by laws very different from those govern- 

 ing nature elsewhere. In my garden at "Floraire" there is 

 snow for scarcely a week or two while upon alpine pastures the 

 winter covering remains until May, June, or even July. In 

 some enclosed mountain valleys, in severe seasons, snow endures 

 throughout several summers and the plants have in consequence 

 no chance of flowering for several years. 



Winter in the Alps is naturally very long, and summer corres- 

 pondingly curtailed; but the snow covering the earth protects 



A STRIKING WALL TREATMENT 



Silver Cerastium and Scarlet Thyme, 

 Armeria, Saponaria ocymoides, and 

 Sedums combine in happy pictorial effect. 

 Gardens of Mr. Hugh Auchincloss, 

 Newport, R. I. 



it from severe frost and keeps the 

 plants warm. Though appar- 

 ently asleep they continue slowly 

 the cycle of their life. Upon the 

 Reculet, in the French Jura, 1 

 have visited tufts of Soldanella in 

 late autumn, just when the first 

 snow appeared, and again at the 

 end of April, when the snow was 

 disappearing. The plants had 

 not been idle! The buds, invisible 

 in autumn, not only had formed 

 and developed, but the flower- 

 heads had pierced the snow and 

 were expanding their blossoms. 



On the mountains, vegetation 

 leaps to life as soon as ever the 

 icy carpet has melted. Under 

 the influence of the south wind, 

 the yellow-brown grass, to all 

 appearances dead, assumes a ten- 

 der green tint; then come the 

 flowers, and quickly all is gaiety 

 of color. Crocuses, Soldanellas, 

 Gentians, and Primulas soon be- 

 jewel the pastures, and the blue 

 sky echoes with their joie de vivre. 

 As if by enchantment and in the 

 twinkling of an eye, life is astir on 

 all sides and summer comes with- 

 out any transition between it and 

 winter. Down on the plains, the 

 periods of transition are long and 

 spring and autumn very impor- 

 tant, but on the high mountains 

 they are almost unmarked, vege- 

 tation passing rapidly from wintry 

 sleep to all the inducements of 

 summer-time. When Flora 

 awakens she profits at once by 

 days of from twelve to fourteen 

 hours' sunshine and the pure, 

 bright light of the heights. The Alpine plants find themselves 

 suddenly enjoying the same amount of light as the plants of the 

 plains enjoy at mid-summer; and as the sunlight is brighter and 

 stronger at high altitudes, one can conceive why the flowers are 

 more brightly and purely colored. The blossoms, too, are rela- 

 tively larger because of the diminutive size of the plant itself. 



Introducing Them to Cultivation 



THE transplantation of Alpines direct from the mountains to 

 our gardens, however natural it may seem, nevertheless 

 presents certain difficulties. The fact that it is at midsummer 

 when the plants are in full growth that they are uprooted and 

 transported to very different conditions, accounts for their 

 reputation of being ungrowable in gardens. They ought to be 

 transplanted during their season of repose; but this is only possi- 

 ble for persons able to recognize the plants when out of flower; 

 moreover, it is the season when the mountains become inhos- 

 pitable and even dangerous. 



At " Floraire" we follow a procedure suggested by good Dame 

 Nature herself, namely, growing from seed. Almost all species 

 of Alpines may be raised from seed which germinates more or 

 less rapidly and, if one knows how to act, always successfully. 

 Seedlings of some species are slow to attain their normal stature 



