ALPINE PLANTS IN THEIK NATIVE MOUNTAINS. 



171 



Androsaces or Eritrichium nanum ; we can learn little about them except 

 that they require conditions which we cannot possibly give them in England. 

 Until some one discovers some new process of acclimatizing plants, we shall 

 never make them thrive in our gardens. I am speaking of the innumerable 

 plants that can be made to thrive, which grow sometimes in rocky fissures 

 sometimes interwoven in a beautiful carpet in the short turf of the higher 

 valleys, sometimes more sparesly in great banks of shale, sometimes among 

 shrubs or in the glades of pine and larch- woods. But wherever they 

 are, there is no bare earth round them, and the soil in which they grow is 

 swarming, as a rule, with intertwined roots. Therefore our object, both 

 for horticultural and aesthetic reasons, should be to have no bare spaces 

 round them in our gardens ; a rock garden should show nothing but rocks 

 and plants. I am aware that there are considerable difficulties in doing 

 this, especially at first starting. Plants must have room to grow, and 

 it is just when they are likely to suffer most from bare spaces — that is 

 to say, before they are well established — that there are likely to be bare 

 spaces round them. We can protect them against some of the evils of bare 

 spaces by surrounding them with chips of stone which will keep the soil 

 moist and open. But our ideal should be to have the ground all covered 

 with plants, which are more beautiful than chips of stone, and we should 

 aim at this ideal from the first, both by providing rich soil in which the 

 plants will grow quickly and by arranging them so that they may be good 

 neighbours. 



It is this kind of arrangement that needs knowledge and experience 

 to enforce and regulate any observations we may make in the Alps. For 

 we must always remember, before we attempt to imitate the profusion 

 and the happiest combinations of nature, that in a garden our aim is to 

 eliminate the struggle for life which prevails everywhere in nature. 

 Among the Alps you will see Gentiana verna struggling through the 

 rampant trailers of Dry as octopetala. Nothing could be more beautiful, 

 but you will be unwise to subject your Gentians to the same struggle 

 in your garden, for they will certainly succumb to it sooner or later. Nor 

 can you be sure, when you see plants in the Alps growing discreetly 

 together, that they will be as good neighbours in England. For some 

 alpine plants change their growth altogether in the lowlands and some 

 do not. Alpine poppies and alpine toadflax are the tiniest things high 

 up in the mountains, with flowers disproportionately large and amazingly 

 bright. Grow them in rich soil in a lowland rock garden and they will be 

 five times the size, losing altogether their alpine proportions of flower to leaf 

 and some of their alpine brightness. You must therefore know the habit of 

 plants in an English rock garden as well as their habits in the Alps if you 

 are to combine them safely together. But if you have this knowledge you 

 can get an infinite number of suggestions for beautiful and safe combinations 

 from any alpine Paradise of flowers. You will see Dryas octopetala 

 interwoven with Globularia cordifolia, an exquisite contrast of lavender and 

 cream ; and the Globularia is vigorous enough anywhere to hold its own 

 against the Dryas. Then if you have a large enough rock garden with 

 cool northern slopes you can plant Anemone sulphurea with Myosotis 

 alpestris, though neither will be as rich in colour as in the Alps. Silene 

 acaulis will contrast well with Hutchinsia alpina, both liking a fairly 



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