50 MORE POT-POURRI 



heavy clay. The most beautiful show of Hepaticas I 

 ever saw anywhere was a row in an old lady's garden, 

 close under a thick hedge of Laurestinus, with a due 

 north aspect. They were single -blue and double -pink. 

 In the same village there was for many years a large 

 clump of double -pink close under a cottage wall with a 

 south-east aspect. That also flowered abundantly, so 

 for double -pink, at any rate, shade is not essential, 

 though I remember that the late James Backhouse told 

 me many years ago that the Hepaticas did best and 

 flowered earliest with a north aspect, as then they went 

 to sleep sooner in the autumn. The wild ones in Swiss 

 and French woods are always where they would be 

 shaded in summer, and grow with the Primroses. I 

 was also unsuccessful with Hepaticas for many years, as 

 long as I grew them on the flat, but when I at last tried 

 them on the shady side of the rockery, between the 

 stones, the blue ones have done well, the plants increas- 

 ing in size year by year and flowering abundantly.' I 

 found by my letters that a good many people thought 

 when I did not mention some plants that I either had 

 not got them, or did not care for them, or did not know 

 them. The last was sometimes the case, but I have, of 

 course, a great many things in the garden, grown in the 

 usual way and doing well, which I did not mention. 



October 15th. I suppose there are still some few peo- 

 ple who plant trees for their children or grandchildren, 

 although it is rather the fashion to expect gardens and 

 woods to be made in a day, and always to be planting 

 quick -growing things, Scotch Firs being discarded and 

 the ugly -growing Pinus austriaca planted in its stead, 

 etc. One of the loveliest things I know in this neigh- 

 bourhood is a road running through a Beech -tree copse, 

 planted thickly but varying in depth on each side of the 

 road. The trees when they were young were evidently 



