164 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



flower, and later a pretty fruit three times as big as the 

 flower. Campanula garganica (blue, and the white one 

 too) and Convolvulus mauritanicus are lovely basket plants. 

 The last-named, nearly hardy, is from North Africa, 

 and easy to increase from division or cuttings. The 

 Cape Mesembryanthemums are pretty basket plants, and 

 do well in a sunny greenhouse. Small, old-fashioned Ivy- 

 leaved Geraniums grow prettily in baskets. But the 

 flowers are endless that can be grown in this way ; some 

 require a saucer to keep in the moisture, others do not. 

 Nothing, however, will teach all this but experience and 

 constant reference to the books. 



Among the immense mass of annuals advertised in 

 catalogues it is often so difficult to make up one's mind 

 what to have. I live, luckily for me, not far from 

 Mr. Barr's Nursery at Long Ditton, and this gives me 

 a chance of seeing a variety of plants and annuals for 

 which no private garden would have room. Two little 

 half-hardy annuals that flowered this year for a very 

 long time seem to me well worth growing, Alonsoa 

 linifolia and A. Warscewiczii. I do wish such small 

 flowers would have less break- jaw names. They are low- 

 growing (about a foot or a foot and a half high), rather 

 delicate-looking little plants ; but so bright in colour, one 

 scarlet and the other scarlet and orange. They are very 

 effective if grown in a good large clump. Bartonia aurea 

 is a picturesque-growing yellow summer annual, which 

 does well in this light soil. 



Limnanthes Douglasii, a Californian annual, is much 

 ioved of bees in spring, and, if sown early in the autumn, 

 flowers in May. Wallflowers require sowing very early 

 for the following year ; also all the Primrose and Poly- 

 anthus tribe are all better sown in April. I know nothing 

 more puzzling in gardening than the times of sowing 

 annuals and biennials to make them successful, and I 



