of an unfortunate wall, nor yet fill up its entire top with the Valerians 

 tumbled and miscellaneous contents of a wheelbarrow. 



In another walled flower garden in this neighbourhood 

 a small transformatign scene was produced some years ago by 

 means of the common crimson Valerian (Centranthus ruber\ 

 Now the Valerian is, as most people know, far from a parti- 

 cularly easy person to manage properly. One of the best of 

 hardy plants from its tenacity and practical indestructibility, it 

 is also one of the most trying on account of its colour. Not 

 that that colour is objectionable in itself so long as the 

 seedlings are selected with a reasonable amount of care but it 

 is, for some reason or other, detestable with nearly every other 

 colour that comes near it. Scarlet is fatal, pink abominable, 

 while the yellows tend, nearly all of them, to look even more 

 crude and mustardy in its company than is their wont. Here 

 the Valerians themselves were made the feature, and no colour 

 stronger than their own rather dusky red was allowed to come 

 within eye-shot. The garden in question is a large one very 

 large in fact the wall on which the Valerians grow being 

 of exceptional length ; and not only were there Valerians 

 in every cleft of it, and covering the whole top, but large 

 clumps of them, mixed, if my memory is to be trusted, with 

 white Columbines and London Pride, rose at intervals along the 

 entire length of the border below. Such a scheme of colour 

 does not perhaps sound promising, but the effect was admirable. 

 That unity, which all gardens need, and a large garden needs 

 especially, was attained, and attained moreover by the very 

 simplest possible means. 



Turning for a moment to the purely native plants of 

 our region, the fact that a considerable number, whose head- 



B 9 



