ROCK, ALPINE, FERN, AND WILD GARDENING. 



3 



Depth of Soil.— It is absolutely needful that the 

 soil should be deep and suitable; a depth of two feet 

 or a yard is by no means excessive for Alpine plants. 

 One of the most mischievous fallacies in regard to 

 these is that they need but little soil. As they are 

 found apparently clinging to the sides of hard, hot 

 rocks, it • is too readily assumed that their root-runs 

 are shallow, hot, and dry. The very opposite of all this 

 is more generally true. The roots run deep, into 

 deep fissures and seemingly unfathomable crevices, 

 and these are cool, as a rule, as well as deep. The 

 fact of their being crevices keeps them cool, for they 

 are full of air or water, both of which conduct heat 

 slowly, and though the sun may beat on the rock, a 

 few inches or a foot distant the roots in the crevices 

 are cool as the bracing air of morning in the early 

 spring-tide. Another cooling agency of great 

 force is almost constantly at work to preserve the 

 I'oots of the plants cool. ]\Iany of them are deni- 

 zens of mountain ranges, inhabiting regions less or 

 more removed from the snow-line. And thus it 

 happens, while their tops may be blooming against 

 the heated rocks, their roots are growing in snow- 

 water, that is, in a temperature but little removed 

 above 32*^. It is of course impossible to mete out all 

 these exact conditions to the roots of Alpine plants 

 under cultivation ; but the nearer we can approach 

 them in regard to the depth and coolness of the root- 

 runs, the better the plants will thrive. 



Finally, the roots must be kept moist, as well as 

 cool. No doubt, even under natural conditions there 

 are exceptions to this rule. Not a few Alpine plants 

 not only "lay their beauteous checks against the 

 thick-ribbed ice, and bid the dewdrops nurse them," 

 but have little better or more liberal fare for their 

 roots. These will hold on to the barren rock, or live 

 in what seems mere stone, dust, or rocky debris. 

 But these are exceptions, and the rule is far other- 

 wise. The flow of water over the surface or through 

 the hidden fissures of rocks is seldom wholly arrested, 

 unless in climates where the dry seasons wither into 

 forced rest all vegetation. The natural sites of 

 most Alpine plants insure a constant supply of water 

 for their roots, and it is almost impossible to over- 

 water the majority of such in dry weather, provided 

 always the drainage is ample and perfect. The 

 water must be kept in motion— moving water in 

 plenty and pure air, as far as may be obtained, being 

 the breath of life to these wild and free children of 

 nature. Stagnant water and sooty, stuffy air is 

 the touch of death to them; and yet not a few 

 nice collections of these plants may be found in or 

 near London, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, 

 Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dublin, York, and other 

 large towns. 



With proper root-runs, at once deep, cool, moist, 



and the tops frequently washed clean with garden 

 engine, syringe, or sponge — for cleanliness is the 

 parent of health in the garden as well as in the 

 home, the workshop, the counting-house, foundry, 

 or mine — the whole distance between the health 

 and beauty and disease and deformity of many 

 plants is included in the one word sanitation, or 

 cleanliness. It may almost be said that all things 

 are possible to the cultivator who keeps his plants 

 clean. How often this tiuth finds forcible illus- 

 tration in the homes of the poor ! In one home 

 dirt reigns supreme, and the plants are jaun- 

 diced and their leaves strickep, killed by the suffo- 

 cating incubus of dirt. Next door the boards of the 

 floor, though rotten and rickety, shine through sheer 

 scrubbing, and the plants in the broken window 

 look as bright and healthy as those in the duchess's 

 boudoir. 



So vitally important is cleanliness to the health 

 of plants, that even Alpines may be successfully 

 cultivated wherever a bit of blue sky can be seen, 

 provided always that ihey are liberally fed and kept 

 scrupulously clean. Dirt and drought are their greatest 

 foes, and not a few rockeries are so constructed 

 as to intensify to the uttermost the evils of both. 

 Set in the teeth of the sun and of every wind 

 that blows, with cramped root-runs that hold only a 

 pinch of soil on an excessively i^ervious or wholly 

 impervious bottom, the roots are either in a state of 

 flood or of absolute want, and the plants droop and 

 die of necessity. 



ISiever was the art of judging by appearances 

 farther from the truth, nor the cause of more absolute 

 failures, than in the case of Alpine plants. Compara- 

 tively few of them are even rock plants ; accidents 

 of stature or of character have placed them where 

 they are found, that is, as a rule, in a well- watered 

 garden, with rich and varied root-runs, composed of 

 the denudation of roclcs and the decomposition of 

 their own remains through a long series of years. 

 Hugging the snow-line for coolness and foi 

 moisture, and to escape the shade of taller or 

 what is tei-med superior vegetation, they form a 

 fringe of verdiu-e and of colour, and a connecting 

 link of matchless beauty between the vegetable and 

 mineral kingdoms. Within their zone they reign 

 supreme over nature — veritable vegetable queens, 

 alike superior to the rocks among and above them, 

 and the taller herbaceous plants, grasses, shrubs, and 

 trees lower down. 



All this is most suggestive to the would-be suc- 

 cessful cultivator of such plants. The plants 

 themselves, and not the artistic piling up or ajsthetic 

 effects of the rocks, must be the chief points. In 

 the design and execution of the majority of rockeries 

 not only are there far more rocks than plants, but 



