320 



The Garden Magazine, February, 1922 



suffer. The ground remains soaked around the crown and the 

 leaves do not dry off quickly enough and the result is the damp- 

 ing off of some choice plants. The porous soil advised will in 

 great measure prevent this by giving quick drainage. 



A great many of the plants suitable for growing in rockeries 

 will not require any special soil mixture, but all or nearly all 

 will grow well in it and to assure better success, it is advised that 

 the soil mixture be approximately as follows: 

 3 parts good loam from rotted sods. 



2 parts humus. I use swamp muck that has been exposed 

 to weather for two years and become fine. When 

 freshly dug it is lumpy and sour. Wood soil would 

 probably be better but that would be hard to get in 

 sufficient quantity. 

 2 parts crushed stone such as is used for finishing roads, 



or fine gravel, 

 i part crushed limestone or old mortar; as most rock plants 

 like lime or do not object to it. 

 This mixture should be not less than 14 inches deep, the deeper 

 the better. This makes a porous soil giving quick drainage, and 

 enabling the plant to root more deeply that it would in a stiffer 

 soil, and so withstanding drought better. The stone in it aids 

 in keeping the soil cool. 



Do not forget to give a top dressing of crushed stone or fine 

 gravel around the plants. This serves to keep the crown from 

 getting waterlogged and also keeps the surface of the ground 

 cool. 



This mixture is as good as any for a foundation soil and agrees 

 with most of the plants, but, of course, no one stated mixture 

 can be expected to serve for all. Some, the Encrusted Saxifra- 

 ges, for example, like much more grit; and some like more humus, 

 especially any that grow naturally in woods or partly shaded 

 places. 



Experience is the best teacher as to this, but when a plant 

 seems ailing, move it to another situation or change the soil, to 

 which end pockets may be hollowed out and filled with a suita- 

 ble mixture. 



My rock gardens are in sun, but have a little shade during a 

 part of the day from trees far enough away so they do not over- 

 hang the gardens. Most of the mountain plants are grateful 

 for this, but they must not be in full shade. 



Our winters are generally favorable for the mountain plants. 

 If they freeze up hard early in winter and stay frozen, they will 

 be all right in the spring. But as we are never sure of a snowy 

 winter, which is what they like, it is necessary to cover them to 

 keep sun off and frost in. 1 use salt hay or leaves, put on lightly, 

 as a heavy covering serves no useful purpose and attracts mice. 

 Evergreen boughs, if obtainable, are very good for this purpose. 



It is our summers that are so trying, and after all is said and 

 done, there will ever be some losses in a summer of much heat 

 and humidity. But with pains taken in the preparatory work 

 these losses may be reduced to a minimum. 



As to seed sowing — I plant seeds late in December or in 

 January when the weather is so cold that they cannot germinate 

 before spring, using flats 14 x 20 x 4 inches put in a coldframe 

 and allowed to freeze. A light covering of leaves or salt hay is 

 laid over the seeds; then sash is put on and boards over this. 



Snow is a valuable aid to germination and it is well to shovel 

 some into the frame in March or to open the frame to a spring 

 snowfall. Many seeds will not germinate well unless planted 

 over the winter and this season, in my experience, is better for 

 many than spring planting. Then, too, the seeds germinate 

 earlier and the plants attain larger size before hot weather comes 

 than if sowing be delayed until spring. When strong enough to 

 prick out, put the seedlings in a frame in not too sunny a place 

 and leave there until they may be transferred to the rock garden. 



III. ROCK PLANTS AND ALPINES RAISED FROM SEED 



LOUISE B. WILDER 



Y OWN experience with growing rock plants and Al- 

 pines during the last twelve years has brought me to 

 the conclusion that by far the best way to go about 

 getting together a collection of these delightful little 

 plants is to raise them from seed. Indeed, since the recent 

 quarantine regulations have closed to us the doors of foreign 

 nurseries, and our own establishments have not yet had time in 

 which to rise to the occasion thus summarily thrust upon them, 

 it is about the only way to acquire any considerable number or 

 variety. It is possible to get a fairly good start, however, by 

 gathering plants here and there from the few progressive dealers 

 who carry any. 



But apart from the exigencies of the situation, there is no 

 doubt that plants raised from seed at home are apt to be sturdy 

 and easily managed. Those brought from a distance, unless 

 carefully packed, arrive in a state of extreme debility and are 

 often a long time regaining their tone and making up their 

 minds to flourish. Sometimes, also, they are too large to be 

 able easily to accommodate themselves to new conditions, or 

 too small to bear a journey without fatal results. The home- 

 grown plant may be lifted when just the right size to fill the posir 

 tion designed for it, and at the season, at the very hour, indeed, 

 when conditions of soil and weather are exactly suitable. All 

 this greatly minimizes the chance of failure, and when we con- 

 sider, as well, the gratification of counting them by dozens, 

 hundreds even, another cogent reason in favor of growing them 

 from seed is added. 



It is indeed quite a problem to discover any place where any 

 considerable variety of rock garden plants are purchasable, but 

 happily it is becoming increasingly possible to procure seeds 

 of some of our own interesting and beautiful mountain plants, 



both of the East and of the West, but for the most part we must 

 import the seed of rock plants and Alpines. And let me here 

 explain for the benefit of those who have not done it, that order- 

 ing seed from abroad is a very simple matter. It entails merely 

 a post office order for the amount due enclosed with the seed or- 

 der. There is no duty on seed, and in about a month from the 

 time the order is dispatched a fat package — it is always fat — 

 of entrancing possibilities arrives. 



Seed is commonly offered in the early spring. This, of course, 

 has been gathered the previous season and has suffered some loss 

 of vitality, making germination less certain, at any rate slower 

 than if we could have it just freshly gathered. But plants differ 

 greatly in this respect, some retaining their vitality much longer 

 than others and, as it is seldom possible to procure perfectly 

 fresh seed, we must make the best of conditions, ordering our 

 seed as soon as the catalogues reach us, and getting it into the 

 ground expeditiously after it arrives. 



MY MANY mistakes and experiments with growing this class 

 of plants have resulted in a method of procedure which, 

 while extremely simple, is productive of very satisfactory results. 

 To begin with, a coldframe is a prime necessity and is best placed, 

 if possible, where it receives the morning sun only. It is well to 

 have more than one section of frame, for once the pleasure and 

 profit of raising rock plants from seed is fully realized, a single 

 section proves entirely inadequate — with twelve I feel my en- 

 thusiasms to be cruelly cramped! The frames used by me 

 are a little out of the ordinary in that they are miniature 

 — only two and a half feet by three feet. This smallness I 

 find of great advantage, for it enables me to reach all parts 

 of the frame with ease, thus greatly simplifying operations con- 



