In the Garden
That great writer on gardens, Mr. Clutton Brock, used to say that no rock garden plant excelled lithospermum prostratum. He wrote, I think, of the dark blue variety (not of the now more popular "heavenly blue "). The other day, Dr. Stoker, speaking before the Royal Horticultural Society, selected a little group of the best Alpines or rock garden plants, and put in the forefront lithospermum and daphne cneorum. It is a little surprising that daphne mezereon is to be found in many cottage gardens and cneorum is comparatively rare. In one small rock garden recently laid out by one of the big firms this daphne grows to great perfection and is the most highly prized of all the plants. Behind each plant has been inserted into the earth a pipe of a few inches in length, and much of the watering is done via this directer passage to the roots. A continuous water supply is the secret of growing many Alpines. If you try to dig up a lithospermum from its favourite hqjne in the Pyrenees you will almost certainly fail. The roots wind and wander their way into rock-sheltered crevices where no drought ever enters. So to preserve a moist home for such roots is the chief object of the stones in a rockery, as all makers of these gardens must remember.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
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