A plant of Iberis sempervirens form that I got three years ago from Carol Dacus plants in Dublin is now ten inches across and completely covered with flowers. This form is a great improvement on the species, I kept one just to compare them. Gentiana acaulis is still proudly displaying three large blue trumpets and seems impervious to the weather. Asperula suberosa is just coming into bloom, and what a treasure this plant is. It annually covers itself with lovely long deep to pale pink flowers, and while I keep one under cover in the winter I have another planted outside and it performs just as well but a little later.
Another plant that survives outside here and is doing very well is Eriogonum jamesii,. I planted it outside four years ago more by accident than design, when I was trying to make some space in the alpine house. A, pitiful sight under glass, it really started to grow when planted in the scree bed, and is now eighteen inches across, and every summer produces lovely yellow pom-poms which turn red after a week or two. Eriogonums are not reputed to be the easiest plants to grow but this one must be an exception.
The primula hybrids have all but finished now, with Pubescens and Ariculas left to carry on the display for another few weeks. The seedlings from the plants that I crossed two years ago are now coming into bloom and one or two of them seem worthy of keeping for further experimentation and maybe even naming. The young plants of Androsace vandeilii. have now covered themselves with white flowers as have the Androsace pyranaica and cylindrica and its hybrids with hirtella. I have at last got the true plants ofcylindrica, from the Androsace group of the Alpine Garden Society. The others show so much variation in foliage and flower size that it is better to grow lots of seedlings and then pick out the best for growing on. The problem with vandeilii is that the plants with the nice silver gray foliage seldom produce the best flowers.
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