256 A HUNDRED YEARS 



thinned, so thickly do they set, a fact which I suppose 

 must be credited to our good Gulf Stream. 



Now I turn to the flowers, and I think almost any- 

 thing that will grow in Britain will grow with me. I 

 was once in a garden in a warm corner of the Isle of 

 Wight, in June, when my hostess and I came upon the 

 gardener carrying big plants of Agapanthus in tubs 

 from under glass to be placed out of doors. His remark 

 as we passed him was, " I think, my lady, we may 

 venture them out now," and I could not refrain from 

 answering the old man back: " If not, then I do not 

 think much of your climate, for in the far North of 

 Scotland we never house them, nor even protect them 

 in winter." I have had great clumps of Agapanthus in 

 the open for thirty years and more, and the white, as 

 well as the blue variety, flowers magnificently every year. 



Ixias are as hardy a perennial here as daffodils. 

 Crocosmia iiwperiaUs runs about my shrubbery borders 

 and comes up with its glorious orange blooms in October 

 in all kinds of unexpected places, just like twitch 

 grass; Alstrcemeria fsittacina, Sparaxis pulcherrimay 

 Sdlla peruviana, Crinum capense, the Antholyzas, and 

 several Watsonias (including even the lovely white 

 Watsonia Ardernei), are quite hardy, and Hahranthus 

 pratensis also blooms every year; and as for lilies, I have 

 had Lilium giganteum ten feet high and with nineteen 

 blooms on it. 



We never lift our scarlet lobelias, nor our blue Salvia 

 patens (except when shifting them), and the dahlias are 

 often quite happy left out all winter. I have never 

 happened to come across Schizostylis coccinea anywhere 



