254 THE GARDENER. [June 



50") the year before, and is now producing two flowers to a growth. 

 Of course it must be suspended head downwards, or it does not thrive 

 satisfactorily, and it enjoys all the light and sun our cold clime affords 

 during winter. Just when the flower-buds are lialf grown, it should 

 have a higher temperature until they expand, when it may again be 

 returned to a cool house. A very little peat, surfaced with sphagnum 

 moss, on a teak-wood raft, is the best compost. 



One of the sweetest and best of white flowers for cutting during the 

 latter end of May or beginning of June, is undoubtedly the double- 

 flowered form of the poet's Narcissus. Once well established in good 

 deep soil, its flowers never fail. By many they are liked even better 

 than Gardenia flowers, to which they bear some resemblance, and 

 they endure for many days in water after being cut. 



One of the most lovely of thoroughly hardy spring flowers is 

 Anemone apennina, which, during April, is most floriferous in all 

 soils and situations. Under trees, or on grassy banks, it is equally at 

 home. If you take a spade and think you have dug up every bit of 

 it, up it comes next year in a bigger patch than ever. It rivals Couch- 

 grass in its capacity for increase under spade cultivation. If it once 

 gets loose in a rich wood, it runs about like a child at play. It is by 

 some called the "Blue Marguerite,^' a somewhat pretty name for 

 it. Years ago it grew splendidly in a verger's garden, under the 

 shadow of Peterborough Cathedral, seemingly as much at home there 

 as if on its native Apennines. F. W. B. 



THE rLOWER- GARDEN. 



Old-fashioned flower-gardens will again be either filled, or all but 

 filled, with their summer or autumn occupants. Plants such as Geran- 

 iums, Lobelias, Ageratums, make the most satisfactory progress here 

 when planted about the beginning of June, therefore we do not hurry to 

 get our " bedding-out " over. Much of the lateness in getting beds 

 filled with flowering-plants lies at the door of putting these out too 

 early. In many situations it is not until the " turn of the day," at the 

 end of June, that real fine continuous growing weather can be looked 

 for. May is commonly 'a cold month, so far as nights are concerned ; 

 and with the exception of hardy plants, or those nearly so, we get as 

 near to the fine weather as possible before we plant. During the past 

 month much work that used to be overtaken in March and April has 

 had to be done. We used to get all hardy plants into their places in 

 these months, but had to wait till May this year, through pressure 

 of other work. Planting up bare places amongst shrubs cut down, or 

 damaged by frost, has entailed a good deal of labour, but we hope to 

 be amply repaid for it all. Laurustinus, Sweet- Bay, and Arbutus 



