HOUSES FOR ALPINE PLANTS. 



103 



the whole of the rain thrown off by the hand-light is poured into 

 the adjoining soil, and that if the plant so protected has neigh- 

 bours, more harm than good may result. For similar reasons, 

 while the head of the plant is thus protected from wet its root 

 is in many cases by no means equally so. The same objection 

 applies to the method adopted by others — a method which, with 

 that drawback, is useful enough— of fixing a single sloping pane 

 of glass, by strong wire standards, over the head of the plant. 

 This plan has the recommendation of allowing complete access 

 o air on all sides. 



I have myself long practised, and would still recommend, the 

 following similar but more wholesale method of protection. A 

 bank or rockery, say 6 feet by 4 feet, is planted closely, and as 

 naturally as may be, with the plants to be protected. It may be 

 a heavy planting of one or two things, such as Onosma taurica, 

 Androsace lanuginosa, or Cyananthus lobatus ; or, if preferred, 

 it may comprise a numerous and varied selection. Four stones 

 of sufficient size are posted at the corners, and upon them a 

 common garden-light of the size indicated is placed, say, from 

 November to March. The protection thus obtained is generally 

 sufficient for a considerable stock of plants. Of course if the 

 bed is flat (it is a sloping bank in my case which has been dealt 

 with) the light is sufficiently tilted to fling off the rain, and it 

 must be so placed that the water is carried in a direction in 

 which it will injure nothing. A little ingenuity in the arrange- 

 ment may insure that, when the light is removed about March, 

 the planting need bear no indication of having been thus roofed 

 over during winter, and may show only as part of the larger 

 bank, border, or rockery of which it is a part. The light is 

 removed occasionally in suitable weather, the better to air the 

 plants, and it is held in place against strong wind by three or 

 four large iron nails, or rather clamps, driven into the ground at 

 intervals, and grasping the frame without piercing it. 



In addition to these methods of protection there is that of 

 unheated frames and pits, and all these methods are perhaps on 

 the whole nearly equally good, judged merely in regard to their 

 cultural utility. Some will suit best in one case, some in another. 

 But none of them, in my judgment, equals that of the Alpine 

 house " proper," which it is my purpose to-day to recommend to 

 those who would commence the culture of this beautiful class of 



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