But whatever may be said in disparagement of the introduction of Alpine plants into England’s fields in general, little or no objection can be made to fields of such plants as adjuncts to Alpine rock-gardens, or as embellishments to park and pleasaunce. Here we are in a domain which is “orthodoxly” regarded as æsthetic, and not as practical or utilitarian. And, after all, we had best begin by the thin end of the wedge—we had best commence with these flower-fields as a “luxury”; afterwards—as is quite likely—we may be able to chronicle “escapes” into the general scheme of the countryside.
I can think of no feature of the Alpine landscape which could add so much charm and interest to English Alpine gardens as an Alpine meadow, and it is no mean matter for surprise that this feature has not so far claimed the attention it most assuredly merits. Moreover, an Alpine rock-garden shorn of its meadow-setting is less than a picture devoid of its frame. Can any one who knows the Alps imagine what they and their rock-flora would be without the fields and grassy slopes? Would there be the same widespread and immediate interest? It is inconceivable, for these fields and slopes are, as it were, the exquisitely sumptuous hall through which, amazed and wondering, we pass to gain the rudeness and refinement of Alpine asceticism proper.
Then there is another and, I think, a crying reason for the creation of fields to supplement our rockworks; we garden at present, for the most part, as if all Alpines were rock-plants, whereas quite an important percentage are purely field-flowers. It will be said that in England’s comparatively luxurious climate the grasses would overwhelm the Alpines and that, therefore, it is only wise to place these latter out of harm’s way. But, although there certainly are some subjects of an Alpine meadow which could scarcely be expected to grapple successfully with English conditions, yet there is a whole host that could do so, especially if care were taken to choose suitable grasses and to exclude certain English weeds (the Field Bindweed, for example, or the Plantain). In advocating any such adoption as the present, we must not be so unphilosophic as to be sweeping and dogmatic; we must be quick to recognise that such subjects of the Alpine grass-lands as Viola calcarata and Gentiana verna, excisa, and nivalis shall of necessity be ushered to the rockwork when they arrive in our island home. But, frankly, I believe there are many of these plants which would be altogether grateful to find themselves in a field rather than in a garden-border or upon a rockery.
Will any one deny that a plant which, in a wild, free state, invariably chooses to dwell upon the meadows is not more at home there than when robbed of such pressing, self-sought company? Will any one deny that, for instance, Campanula rhomboidalis, Paradisia Liliastrum, Salvia pratensis, Narcissus poeticus, Veratrum album, or Phyteuma betonicifolium are not infinitely happier when growing together in close company with grasses than when standing in select isolation upon the rockery or the garden-border?
Possibly it will be argued that these field-plants show themselves so much better on the border or the rockwork. But do they? Does Colchicum, for example, look better against the brown earth of a border than upon a thick-set carpet of green? Does Veronica spicata ever look better than when seen upon the fields of the Alps? Is it possible that the Meadow-Orchids are not at their best among the grasses? For my own part, I find many of these plants look thin and lonesome when carefully set apart “to do themselves full justice.” In nature they are items in a rich reciprocal scheme of intimacy, and in this assuredly is their truest happiness; therefore, as part of this scheme they must certainly be seen at their best. Snatched from their social birthright and perched in grandeur upon a rockwork, they cannot but have wistful thoughts of lost companionship.
Owners of rockworks may protest that they do all they possibly can for their captives, treating them as tenderly as they would any beautiful bird in a cage; they may protest that their captives are fed and watered most carefully and know little or nothing of the struggle for existence which rules upon Alpine meadows. And this is all very right and proper as far as it goes; but very many of these plants could be treated even more kindly and properly by allowing them something of their ancestral habits. That which untrammelled Nature decrees for her offspring is inevitably best, and we should take practical note of it where possible. We ourselves are rebels and, as modern instance shows, are very conscious of it in our more rational moments, crying aloud in a hazy, frightened way, that we must “get back to Nature!” Why, then, compel rebellion in so many a thing we admire? Such compulsory estrangement from what is natural is a sorry sort of kindness. Let us put back the field-flowers into the fields—or, at any rate, as many as we may.
To a great number of flower-lovers this would be a much simpler matter than the building and tending of rockworks (though, of course, the ideal should be for the field to companion or environ the rockery). It would be less complicated, and it would not entail such a variety of specialist knowledge. Many of a kind, and each kind robust and, for the most part, ordinary—that should be the rule among the plants for our Alpine meadow. Fractious, exigent rarities would naturally not be welcome. Fields are perhaps loveliest when planned upon broad lines. There is no need to make extraordinary efforts to find sports and forms; no need to do more than Nature does—here and there a white or porcelain-grey Campanula rhomboidalis, here and there a pale-pink Geranium sylvaticum, here and there a white Salvia pratensis, here and there a white Colchicum autumnale. Forms and sports and vagaries are all very well, but in these meadows it is the type-plant which counts. A field of Salvia, Campanula, and Geranium is blue and mauve; that is the general effect, and variation from it rarely counts in the colour-scheme. Eccentricity we may keep for the proud eminence of our rockworks.