INTRODUCTION 
Our purpose in preparing this Handbook is twofold. Mainly, to be 
frank with you, to sell our plants although we have not listed prices. We will 
publish a free price list every year. The second reason, no less important than 
the first is our attempt to acquaint you, to the best of our ability, with the 
alpines and rock plants that are most suited to our climate and to arouse the 
interest of plant lovers in growing the more difficult of the rare alpines and 
little known native American plants. The list of desirable plants for rock 
gardens, wall and terrace gardens, bog and peat gardens, sink and trough 
gardens, wild gardens and any other phase of gardening employing dwarf 
material is seemingly endless. The species and varieties number into the 
thousands. An attempt to catalogue all of them would take years of work and 
would fill volume after volume. 
In this Handbook we have listed only the plants we have had personal 
success with. Approximately 700 species and varieties. This we consider a 
comprehensive list but by no means a complete one. We have purposely left 
out many varieties of Sempervivums, Sedums, Saxifragas and varieties of some 
other genera that have only slight differences from some of the kinds listed. 
We have also omitted many others that we consider unworthy or undesirable. 
Some for being too weedy or too coarse and others of annual or biennial 
nature or too tender to be included in a list of hardy perennials and shrubs. 
We have many more species at the nursery now and the list of likely subjects 
_we would like to try in the ensuing years is as endless as the untverse. 
| Names of plants are important. A good system of names in the 
_ botanical field is absolutely essential, therefore we have used the standardized 
latin names as listed in Bailey's Hortus II. In the past few years the botanists 
have had a field day in changing and juggling names. . . We have ignored 
__all changes that are not listed in Hortus I]. Common or English names change 
with the years and from locality to locality. They cannot be used as a basis 
_ for any list, however we have used them after the latin names of the plants 
they are usually applied to in most sections of the country. We have catalogued 
alphabetically, using the genus name first in bold capitals, followed by the 
common name and then the family name in parenthesis. The species in the 
geneta are also listed alphabetically, with the genus name, species name and 
_ varietal name in bold small letters. If the plant is sometimes listed under 
another name it is given in parenthesis. If there is a common name usually 
applied to a specific species it is also given in parenthesis. 
