NOVEMBER 95 



November 10th. I find several of the Japanese 

 Maples so well worth growing and quite hardy here. 

 They make very little growth, and want dry, sunny, 

 protected places, where they suffer sometimes from 

 drought, but recover by the following year, and are 

 delightful plants. Golden Privet is a very pretty - 

 growing plant when young, out of doors or in pots. 

 It has been much used of late in London in window- 

 boxes. I have never tried to see if it would keep its 

 leaves in a room. 



November 13th. I gathered to-day a small but 

 bright, well -grown Oriental Poppy; and several of the 

 Delphiniums, cut down in summer, have flowered beau- 

 tifully a second time. One cannot provide for or be 

 sure of these out -of -season garden surprises ; but when 

 they come by chance some one year, some another 

 they are very delightful, interesting, and precious. 

 They are like an unexpected piece of good fortune, or 

 the return of a long- absent friend, who, one thought, 

 had quite forgotten one, and who returns as on the day 

 he left as friendly, as kind, and as confidential. Such 

 surprises push back for a moment the dial of the clock 

 a thing not to be despised even as a passing illusion, 

 whether in the late autumn of a garden or of life. 



November 18th. Two days later than I have ever 

 before remained down here ! It is such beautiful 

 weather. In these mild days the singing of birds comes 

 slightly as a surprise, so different from the silence of 

 August and September. How little one realizes during 

 this silence that the birds, thrushes especially, begin to 

 sing now, in November, and keep on all through the 

 winter, in mild weather, till the end of June. The 

 robin did not like the dry season ; he began to sing so 

 late this season. 



November 20th. Most people who have gardens wish 



