38 MORE POT-POURRI 



same way as before described for Hydrangeas, leaving 

 them out all the winter. Mine were kept in a cool green- 

 house, and looked perfectly healthy, but had hardly any 

 flowers at all this year. It's the old story. Everything 

 from the Cape stands many kinds of treatment, but must 

 have a long period of rest in order to flower well. Under 

 a tall wall facing west in this Suffolk garden was a 

 glorious border of many of the hardiest Bamboos, with a 

 few strong -growing herbaceous plants in between and 

 towards the front. The soil, in spite of the dryness of 

 the year, was moist and very heavy, and the gardener 

 told me he never dug up the border or touched it except 

 to thin out and dig a big wedge out of the herbaceous 

 plants with his spade in winter, filling up the hole with 

 strong manure well stamped in. This, where size of 

 clumps and filling up of large spaces are wanted, is quite 

 an admirable plan. No re -plan ting is either necessary 

 or desirable. In a small garden and light soil, where 

 refinement and specimen plants are desired, re -planting 

 and dividing, as well as thinning out, certainly seem to 

 me to give finer blooms. On the top of a low wall, divid- 

 ing this garden from another portion of it, were some 

 flower -boxes well filled with trailing and half-hardy 

 plants, brilliant in colour and easy to water and attend 

 to ; and the effect was very good, and might be adopted 

 on those dreary little walls that sometimes divide small 

 villa gardens from their neighbours. The evaporation 

 from painted wood is very much less than from flower- 

 pots, and there is no fear of their being thrown over by 

 a high wind. 



Going about, I observe that next to pruning and 

 cutting back there is nothing people are so ignorant 

 about as watering, especially in dry weather. The 

 ordinary non- gardening mind seems to think that if a 

 thing looks blighted or faded or drooping, it is ' below 



