361 



EVERGREEN FLOWER 

 BORDERS. 



In some positions evergreen borders are 

 effective, especially near the house, and 

 they should be welcome to many who 

 are sick of the effect of those bare earth 

 borders that the common way of garden- 

 ing bestows upon us — a quite unneces- 

 sary ugliness. Needless, because in our 

 climate so many alpine and rock plants 

 and small shrubs preserve their ever- 

 green look so well through the winter 

 that it is easy with a little thought to 

 form evergreen borders of a lasting and 

 pretty character. These borders, too, 

 being mainly of dwarf plants, form the 

 best carpet in which to grow one's choice 

 early bulbs . Of garden pictures there are 

 few prettier than Crocus, Snowdrops, 

 Scilla, early Iris, or the rarer Narcissi, 

 coming through the Moss-like carpets 

 in evergreen borders. Often narrow 

 evergreen borders are the best things 

 that can be placed at the foot of impor- 

 tant walls (meant for climbers), as the 

 common fashion of allowing grass to 

 grow right up to the walls and houses 

 is a bad one and results in injury to the 

 trees. A narrow border cut off with a 

 natural stone edging from the grass or 

 walk, is best; even a border of this size 

 may have many lovely things, from early 

 Cyclamen to the rarer Meadow Saffrons 

 in the autumn. Besides the flowers al- 

 ready named we have Violets, Peri- 

 winkles, Carnations, Pinks, white Rock 

 Cress, Barrenworts — charming in foli- 

 age, purple Rock Cresses, Omphalodes, 

 Iris, Acanthus, Indian and other Straw- 

 berries, Houseleeks, Thymes, Forget- 

 me-nots, Sandworts, some Gentians, La- 



vender, Rosemary, hardy Rock Roses, 

 and many native and other hardy ever- 

 green Ferns in all their fine variety ; 

 these are an essential aid in the making 

 of hardy evergreen borders. It would 

 take a long list to enumerate the plants 

 useful for this kind of border, but in 

 many cases we may say the whole family 

 is useful,as in the Mossy Rockfoils(o^?x/- 

 fragd)) Houseleeks, and Stonecrops ; 

 Christmas Roses also, and, where it 

 thrives, Gentianella (G. acaulis), with 

 the Evergreen Candytufts and dwarfer 

 Heaths, valuable as they are in flower 

 as well as for their evergreen habit; also 

 the Rocky Mountain Phloxes, Sand 

 Myrtles, and the dwarf Partridge Berry. 

 These plants are not only good as dwarf 

 evergreens, they are delightful in colour, 

 many of them covering the ground with 

 carpets of fresh verdure, not a few being 

 beautiful in flower, and having also the 

 charm of assuming their most refreshing 

 green in autumn just when other plants 

 are losing their leaves or dying down. 

 Along with these numerous alpine and 

 rock plants we may group dwarf shrubs 

 that come almost between the true shrub 

 and thealpine flower — little woody ever- 

 green creeping things, like the Canadian 

 Cornel, the dwarf Rhododendrons of 

 the mountains of Europe and the hy- 

 brids raised from them, and the smaller 

 Azaleas. 



It is important to secure all the good 

 plants of a grey hue that we can, as no- 

 thing is better in effect than carpets of 

 grey like the Lavender Cotton and the 

 dwarf Lavender in dry soils, the Grey 

 Speedwell, the Grey Thyme, the Silvery 

 Bindweed (Convolvulus cneorum), Au- 



