My Garden in Spring 



position of intermediate grittiness and spectabilis has gone 

 to the upper slopes. How magnificent it sounds ! That 

 is the fun of writing of one's garden : a steep bank can be 

 a cliff, a puddle a pool, a pool a lake, bog and moraine 

 sound as though a guide were needed to find your way 

 across them, and yet may be covered by a sheet of The 

 Times. My Dolomites lie within the compass of my out- 

 stretched arms, and there is not much wasted space now 

 the Primulas are settled in. So far they have thriven 

 amazingly, and this Spring, when the curtain rang up, the 

 Auricula forms first took the stage. The Bauhinii troupe 

 were quite as fine with their large Daffodil-yellow, white- 

 eyed flowers on stout stems as on their own hillside. The 

 ciliata lot with their deep green mealless leaves gave 

 blossoms as nearly orange as when found wild. Oenensis 

 took the next turn, and pleased me more here than when 

 at home : the flowers looked less aniline in colour and had 

 such pleasant white eyes, but perhaps I had picked out the 

 best forms only. Longifloras was the star performance, 

 however. Before going to rest for the winter they formed 

 fat crowns like small cabbages, and this May each rosette 

 sent up two stems, and the main one bore twenty or more 

 blossoms, instead of the half dozen or so I had found them 

 contepted with at home. I had never seen this species 

 alive before I went to its home to meet it, as it is 

 apparently seldom grown in gardens, and in spite of all 

 this appearance of vigour I cannot help feeling there must 

 be something wrong about its constitution to have pre- 

 vented its sharing cottage-garden edgings with Thrift and 

 Daisies. 



So I have saved some seeds to prepare for squalls, and 

 138 



