From AG 6 May 1939
Aubrieta
I GIVE the honours in my garden to aubrieta. Many years ago, I first made my acquaintance with this charming rock plant when I came into possession of a new garden, and found therein a scrap of this rockcress in a rich carmine hue. This was split up into several bits, and quickly I had some grand clumps. Since that time aubrietias of all manner of shades have found a place in my rockery.
On a south-facing slope they come through the hardest winter without harm, each clump increasing in size year after year. I never cut the clumps back, as often advised, for in my case that would simply be wasting blooms. When planting, a little lime and grit in the soil seem to encourage vigorous growth.
I place ‘Doctor Mules’ first, as a purple variety that grows vigorously, and is simply smothered in bloom. ‘Gloriosa’ is surely the best of the pinks, while ‘Godstone’ is a beautiful wine-red. Some of my best shades and biggest-bloomed kinds are nameless. They were raised from a packet of ‘Monarch’-strain seeds, and these hybrids have provided me with scores of clumps. I simply sowed the seed out of doors in a bed of fine soil, pricked the seedling out 3in (8cm) apart, and then in autumn transferred them here, there and everywhere in the rockery and along the front of the border.
I have also used my aubrietias very freely for spring bedding to good effect – something that often astonishes my friends, who are accustomed to paying sixpence per clump for their plants. Its heyday is in spring (in mild late winters I have had the lavender kinds in flower in February), but by snipping off all the seedpods I can always coax a decent second show of bloom in late summer.
TA Hey, Bingley, West Yorkshire