Flowers of Late Spring 



forms of the Pyrus japonica were covered with 

 flowers and defied the winds, and so lasted in 

 flower a long time ; Photinia serrulata has a 

 special beauty of its own in its young shoots, 

 which at a very short distance look like fine 

 flowers ; but this year my tree had flowers for 

 the first time, though the tree must be quite fifty 

 years old ; the flowers are pretty, but not striking. 

 The Forsythias were all beautiful, but with us the 

 F. suspensa grown against the house was far the 

 best, and was like a golden curtain at least fifteen 

 feet high. After flowering the whole plant is cut 

 in close, and at once begins to form the new 

 shoots that will bear flowers next year. All the 

 magnolias have been loaded with flowers, and 

 surely no other hardy flowering tree can bear 

 comparison with these early flowering magnolias, 

 except perhaps the horse chestnut. And, to name 

 no more, the pretty Azara microphylla, with its 

 dainty foliage, had the backs of the leaves 

 covered with its little flowers ; the flowers are of 

 small beauty, but they have a strong Vanilla-like 

 scent which can be felt many yards away. 



I think the spring of 1900 will be memorable 

 in many ways in the garden. I cannot remember 

 a season in which flowers were so abundant on 

 almost every flower-bearing plant not, however, 

 on all, for the crown imperials in my own garden 

 and in most of the gardens in the neighbourhood 

 were stunted in growth and had very few flowers. 

 Why this grand old plant should this year be 



J 5 



