The Andromeda is a hardy flowering evergreen shrub, and this article will deal with this first.
This used to be quite a large family until the botanists split it up under such names as Oxydendrum, Pieris, Cassiope, and Zenobia, leaving only one species of garden importance under the original name; this is Andromeda polifolia, the Bog Rosemary.
This shrub belongs to the natural order Ericaceae, or heather family, and like most of its kind is a peat lover. It does best in a rather damp peaty soil of an almost boggy nature during the summer months, but some provision must be made for drainage during the winter, as swampy conditions at that season are not desirable. You will not need to do any pruning, and planting is best done in early autumn or spring.
Andromeda polifolia can be pro¬pagated by seed sown late in February or March in pans filled with a mixture of sand and peat in a cold frame. The seeds should not be covered with soil, but the pans may be covered with sheets of glass.
Propa¬gation can also be effected by very careful division in spring, the pieces being estab¬lished in pots under glass and gradually hardened off for planting out, or by cuttings 1 to 2 inches in length of firm young growth inserted during August under a bell glass in sandy peat.
Secondly we will look at Androsace which are hardy rock plants.
Many species are really the very best plants for the rock garden and so are well deserving of the best positions. A few are too difficult for the average amateur, if we take a close look at the Androsace sarmentosa, Androsace lanuginosa, and their varieties are quite easily grown, while Androsace arachnoidea, which makes compact tussocks of growth covered in early summer with pure white flowers, and Androsace Chamasjasme, another very choice tufted species with white blooms, can be easily accommodated in the moraine.
The easiest of the Androsace should be grown in a sunny, open position in the rock garden in a compost of about three parts light loam, one part peat moss litter, one part sharp sand, and one part limestone chippings. The more difficult species do best in the moraine in a very free-drained and gritty compost with water flowing beneath during late spring and throughout the summer. In autumn and winter almost all androsaces benefit from the protection of a pane of glass supported on notched sticks or bent wires to ward off excessive rainfall, which otherwise settles on the woolly foliage and causes decay. As the young plants are almost always grown in pots, planting can be carried out at prac¬tically any season of the year, though early spring is the most favourable time.
Every one should have a rock garden, even in a small yard. It gives you the opportunity to grow lovely small plants like Androsace which can make such a difference to the appearance of the place, and it really becomes a feature that visitors notice and comment upon.
