198 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



and watch them. Plants are just like children ; it is a 

 keen, watchful, ever-attentive, thoughtful eye they require 

 not, figuratively speaking, pulling up by the roots to see 

 how they are getting on. If you cannot go to Covent 

 Garden, go to the nearest nurseryman, and try and get 

 there what you want. I would buy Daisies, Forget-me- 

 nots, Violas, Pansies, common Marigolds, Nasturtiums, 

 blue Lobelias, Geraniums, Sweet Verbenas in fact, 

 nearly all the things you see. Only make notes year by 

 year as to what does best, and try to learn for yourself 

 what likes full sun and what likes half-shade, and what 

 can be planted in April and what not till the end of May. 

 I believe in this way a very bright London garden might 

 be seen during May, June, and July, at any rate at a 

 very small expense. 



Sowing your own seeds takes too long, and is too un- 

 certain without a hot-bed. Do not put off planting all 

 the hardy plants too late. London is warmer than the 

 country, and your great object ought to be to get things 

 early. All Pinks, Saxifrages (especially London Pride), 

 Ferns, and all the hardy perennials you like to try, ought 

 to be planted in October, at the same time as the bulbs. 

 The Campanulas named in June would do well in small 

 London gardens ; the shade of the walls and the moisture 

 would suit them excellently. Perhaps they might want 

 water, if the weather was very dry, to help them to flower. 



There are often a few cold nights at the end of May, 

 when the icebergs are floating South those wonderful, 

 beautiful ice-mountains, once to have seen, never to be 

 forgotten ; they have eight times their height below the 

 water, and this keeps them straight as they float onwards, 

 glittering in the sunshine. Beautiful as they are to those 

 who see them, they are cruel destroyers of our poor un- 

 certain spring weather. A very good plan on cold nights 

 is to throw over your plants some newspapers, held down 



