HOUSES FOR ALPINE PLANTS. 



169 



By choosing suitable subjects there need be no difficulty in 

 almost or wholly concealing the pots, even without plunging, 

 so that on entering the house the picture presented to the 

 eye may be of a mass of Alpine plant-life rather than a pot 

 collection. 



Before leaving the Saxifrages, I should observe that though 

 but a limited number are tender enough to value the protection 

 much, a great number are choice and lovely enough at all times 

 to make them welcome occupants in winter of the Alpine house. 

 Indeed, a house almost filled, in addition to the kinds before 

 named, with fine specimens of, e.g. the magnificent Pyrenean 

 Saxifrage of S. lantoscana, and S. paradoxa, the many choice 

 forms of S. Aizoon, and with S. Cotyledon, S. Macnabiana, and 

 others among the encrusted group, and a score or so of equal 

 beauty in the mossy section, makes a highly satisfactory plant 

 picture throughout the dead winter months, and this with foliage 

 only. Blossom may be had with ease up to November. 



But how about blossom in December and J anuary ? Certainly, 

 if the winter be severe, one may then have to be content with 

 foliage only, unless a little help from a greenhouse be at hand, 

 and be not on principle rejected by the hardy-plant lover. But 

 not so if the winter be even fairly mild. Barely will Burser's 

 Saxifrage, or S.juniperina or S. sancta, fail to open in fair plenty 

 during January. Often, too, will Prinmla villosa and P. nivalis 

 show bloom before that month is out, and P. rosea its carmine 

 buds. It is quite an exceptional mid- winter in which I am without 

 the bloom of Poly gala chamcebuxus purpurea, otitis histrio, and 

 of Primula capitata ; the latter a gloriously beautiful Himalayan 

 Primula of the richest purple blossom, and it seems to have the 

 quality of blooming in any and every month of the year. As I 

 write this on January 5, 1893, with the thermometer registering 

 27° of frost outside, the plant is still in fair bloom in one of my 

 unheated Alpine houses, as is Primula ciliata, and that beautiful 

 and scarce gem, the true Viola alpina, which during the whole 

 of the winter has been an ornament to the house. 



Pernettyas and other berried shrubs potted up for the purpose 

 add lovely and varied colour during the deadest time of the year. 

 And if other dwarf plants than true Alpines be permitted, winter 

 bloomers like Iris stylosa and I. alata, Sisyrincliinm grandi- 

 florum, and the perpetual-blooming Primulas, P. obconica and 



