My Garden in Spring 



pride in its great spikes of cups of palest blue with deeper 

 streaks on them, it is the noblest of all Scillas. There is 

 a white form of maxima that is not so robust as the blue, 

 but is a good thing for semi-shade. I have planted it 

 among some good forms of British ferns in the shade of 

 an Evergreen Oak and the effect is very good. The beds 

 in the garden in front of the wall are edged with stone- 

 paved walks, and I like to plant something along the edges 

 that will grow out over the flags, so one bed has several 

 forms of Cheiranthus alpinus and Alyssum saxatile used 

 thus. The lemon-yellow form var. citrinum is very effective 

 next to the double one of this latter plant, and contrasts well 

 with the many shades of brown, crimson, and purple of 

 what is often wrongly called Cheiranthus mutabilis, the name 

 of a half-hardy, shrubby plant from Madeira. I know that 

 is wrong, but am not sure it is right to call it C. alpinus 

 versicolor as I do. Anyway it is a good thing, and much 

 better than a paler form known as C. Dillenii. The darker 

 and better plant has of late years hybridised spontaneously 

 with C. Allionii in several gardens, and has produced some 

 fine plants with deep orange flowers changing with age to 

 blood red: that known as Miss King's or Newark Park 

 Variety is the best coloured of them, but here it has a 

 lanky habit and flowers itself to death, and we prefer 

 one that appeared spontaneously in the rock garden and 

 has a dwarfer habit and makes more growth. It is a fine 

 mass of rich orange and red brown in May, and especially 

 pleasing here on the grey stones. 



Between this paved garden and the river there is a 

 formal Rose Garden, in the centre of which stands the old 

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