148 



IRISH GARDENING 



The only two other iiuMiibeis of tliis griiiis wliic-h 

 I possess are not recorded i>y Mr. Bean. 1'. TuUini 

 is a New Zealander, with leaves larger than L' . 

 (ilpiiia hut smaller than F. nuhiijeud, whii-h last it 

 nnn-h more nearly resembles. The leaves, however, 

 instead of standing out separately from the twigs 

 as in 7iithiiiena, grow in bunches with a bottle- 

 brush formation. I should say its hardiness with 

 me is likely to be very doui)tfid. Last comes 1'. 

 iiiralis, of which I can find no account in any of 

 my gardening books, so I presume that it is com- 

 paratively a novelty; it is one of the very short, 

 small-leaved kind, and externally has much in 

 common with rrumnop\tys eletjans. It has been 

 too short a time here to enable me to pronoinice 

 on its hardiness, but the fact that it also is a 

 native of N. Zealand makes its survival through 

 manv Aldenham winters an improbability. 



Sd.reqothxa conspicua, introduced from Chile in 

 1849, n'lakes an interesting small Yew-like tree in 

 ])laces where it succeeds. Up till this year I should 

 Jiave said Aldenham was not one of them. I lost 

 the first plants which I acquired from winter cold 

 or other cause, and until quite lately the few that 

 remained were unhealthy, losing branches here and 

 there from no explicable cause. In the spring of 

 I'M), however, they turned over a new leaf, and 

 seem now to be doing very well. The leaves are 

 small and the branches pendulous. Its name was 

 given in compliment to our Prince Consort. No 

 other species of this genus has yet been discovered. 



Toneyo (■(ilifornica, or, as it used generally to be 

 called, T. nnjrhtlcd, though coming from so warm 

 a climate, has so far not been damaged materially 

 by frost at Aldenham. The foliage is dark green in 

 colour, stout and stiff in texture, and terminates 

 with a sharp point. Bean records an example 45 

 feet high at Tregothnan in Cornwall, and I know 

 one which does not fall much short of this height 

 at Tortworth in Gloucestershire. The only other 

 member of this small family (four) which I can 

 ))oast is T. grandis. This was introduced in 1855 

 from China by Fortune. The leaves are slighter 

 and thinner in texture than is the case with the 

 Californian form, and, in my example at any rate, 

 of much lighter green. This last feature, however, 

 may easily Ije attributable to want of vigour, and, 

 nideed, I have not had this species long enough to 

 write with any confidenee as to its l)ehaviour. The 

 Japanese species, T. nurifera, is closely allied to 

 the last-mentioned, but I am not fortvuiate enough 

 to own one, and it is certainly far rarer in Eng- 

 lish gardens than T. califuniica, although Professor 

 Sargent bestows high praise on the " extraordinary 

 ])eauty " of its appearance in its native land. 

 Finally, T. tuxifolia, the " Stinking Cedar," of. 

 Florida, is not to be found here, nor, so far as I 

 know, in any other garden in these islands. Here 

 ends my accoimt of the Taxads at Aldenham, and 

 I fear that I may have taken up more of your space, 

 Mr. Editor, than the subject warrants; l)ut though 

 they may not be the most interesting or orna- 

 mental of (jenera, they are certainly not devoid of 

 merit, and are worthy of more attention than they 

 commonly receive. 



Garden Notes from Co* Clare 



We are now near the end of the summer, and 

 gardeners will be able to estimate roughly how 

 nmch the individual gardens under their care are 

 worth as regards the bulk of the fruit and veget- 

 able crops for this season ; at any rate, they will 



be able to give a good guess as to wliere they 

 stand for tlie coming winter, and I am afraid 

 that most of them will .shake their heads sorrow- 

 fully when the time comes for filling the fruit- 

 room . 



In my previous notes, which appeared in this 

 paper for last JMay. I said that if the weather 

 would only favour the fine show of blossom that 

 the fruit trees here bore, there should be a good 

 crop of fruit when the gathering time came : but, 

 alas! the weather was entirely against them from 

 the start, and now, although the summer has 

 come and almost gone, we have never had even 

 one week of summer weather, the result being a 

 very bad fruit crop in general. 



Plums, for instance, which were abnormally 

 early in blossom this year, and had to meet so 

 much bad weather at that stage, especially those 

 in the open — the foliage of some varieties being 

 blown off with the gales of 11th March and 

 the 19th and 20th of April — have suffered very 

 much in consequence, and trees that yielded 

 eight to ten stones of plums in normal years have 

 ripened less than one stone this season. A few 

 varieties have escaped, however, especially those 

 on the south wall, and are bearing excellent crops. 

 In the gardens here many ti*ees and varieties 

 of apples also have not a single fruit on thein ; 

 the only varieties carrying fairly good crops are — 

 Lady Sudeley, Lord Grosvenor, Bramley's 

 Seedling, Worcester Pearmain, Loddington, and 

 Irish Peach ; this refers mainly to bush trees in 

 the open. The apple crop on Cordon trees is 

 almost nil. Trained trees of Mr Gladstone and 

 James Grieve on a west wall are carrying good 

 crops of satisfactory fruit. Other apples in the 

 open carrying a sprinkling of good clean fruits 

 are — Chas. Ross, Peasgood's Nonsuch and Annie 

 Elizabeth ; Cox's Orange Pippin practically nil. 

 All apples are in appearance a fortnight behind 

 normal years, and unfortunately a large propor- 

 tion are permanently disfigured as the result of 

 a heavy fall of hailstones on lOth June. 



The above remarks apply almost exactly to 

 pear trees. In the open they show a very meagre 

 quantity of fruit, and many trees on the walls 

 are fruitless ; those carrying fair crops are — 

 Beurre d'Amanlis, Durondeaii, Jargonelle, 

 Souvenir du Congres, and Williams' Bon Chretien. 

 I may here add that the Apples are named in 

 rotation of heaviness of crojjs, Lady Sudeley 

 bearing the heaviest. 



One fruit grower in this locality has 1,.500 

 young apple trees, and there is not a bushel of 

 Apples on the whole number. 



We have some compensation (though 

 small) in the satisfactory returns from all small 

 fruits ; Gooseberries and all Currants were 

 particularly good ; Strawberries, though carrying 

 good crops, were much depreciated by sunless, 

 cold and wet weather at the time for ripening, 

 much loss being caused by these adverse weather 

 conditions. 



Most kinds of vegetables have done well this 

 year, and so have most of our bedding plants, 

 although at first there was great danger of the 

 latter being completely washed out of the soil by 

 torrential rains and hailstone showers, which 

 did so much damage to the Apple crop. 



To come back to the vegetables, I would like 

 to mention a few kinds that did not do so well as 

 in normal years. Autumn sown Cauliflowers, 

 for instance, made little or no progress when 



