90 MORE POT-POURRI 



perennial flowering Mesembrianthemums, which, I think, 

 are beautiful things in a winter greenhouse, in a pot, 

 and hanging from a shelf. All the same, I imagine it 

 would be possible to sow the Ice -plant so late that it 

 might go on growing through the winter in a pot, though 

 its beauty can never be so great as on a broiling hot 

 summer's day. 



I agree with every word that Cowper says, and his 

 lines suggest what I want specially to urge on those who 

 pass the winter in the country. Greenhouses were new 

 in Cowper 's time, and the pleasure of them has probably 

 been wiped out or, at any rate, greatly diminished by 

 the way people who can afford such luxuries are now 

 always rushing away in search of sunshine in other 

 climes, and are content to come back in June and find 

 their flourishing herbaceous borders, that have been 

 asleep under manure all the winter, surpassing in luxu- 

 riance of colour and form the gardens of the South. 

 One of the least helpful volumes of the large edition of 

 Mrs. London's 'Lady's Flower Garden' is the one called 

 'Ornamental Greenhouse Plants' so many things she 

 recommends to grow are now proved to be hardy, and so 

 many others that we now know to be well worth the 

 trouble of cultivation for flowering in the winter are 

 omitted altogether. I know no modern book that quite 

 tells one enough how to keep a small conservatory fur- 

 nished all the year round. 



Greenhouse flowers can be most interesting and vari- 

 ous, and I propose each month through the winter to 

 name fresh things as they come on and are brought into 

 the small conservatory next my sitting-room. I am too 

 ignorant to speak of any plants except those I grow. 

 The conservatory faces east and south, so it gets what 

 sun there is to be had in winter. I removed the stages 

 that were there, except two shelves close to the glass on 



