On Shallow Soils

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22628, 16 January 1937, Page 10 (Supplement)

On Shallow Soils

The real gardening enthusiast will endeavour to make a garden wherever he or she may be situated, and of all situations calculated to require a-good deal of thought, the shallow soil is perhaps the worst. It dries up badly, and will not hold moisture when rain falls. Chieranthus alpinus, all the holinnthemums, scdums and sempervivuras are plants that the shallow soil gardener should gather together in collections. Chieranthus linifolius flowers year after year for four or five months on the coping of a wall where it has nothing but disintegrated mortar and accumulated grit in which to root. In one garden we have seen Chieranthus mutabilis and Chieranthus alpinus wedded on a stony bank, and their progeny self-seeded and untended throw flowers ranging from straw-yellow to, buff, terracotta, mauve and wine red.