In My Vicarage Garden 



ceeded with it, though it grows easily in many of 

 the cottage gardens of the neighbourhood. This 

 exhausts the flowering shrubs now in flower, with 

 the exception of the peaches and nectarines, which 

 I think we should grow for their pretty flowers, 

 even if there were no fruit to follow, and with the 

 exception of one other which deserves a paragraph 

 to itself. 



I have on my lawn an old circular bed per- 

 manently planted with a broad band of the dwarf 

 S. European heath, Erica carnea, and' inside that 

 another band of the old yellow crocus, the 

 remainder of the bed being carpeted with the 

 beautiful leaves of the autumn cyclamen, C. 

 hederaefolium. In summer the centre is gay 

 with an old plant of fuchsia globosa, and some 

 Japanese maples. The heath and crocus in 

 ordinary years would have passed away long 

 before this, but they are still in great beauty, and 

 have been for some weeks ; the heath was in 

 blossom in the beginning of February. I wonder 

 this heath is not more grown. As far as I know, 

 it will grow in any soil ; it is very inexpensive, 

 and if cut in close after flowering it forms a rich 

 green cushion all the year. To bees, too, it is 

 very attractive ; I always see on it the first bees 

 of the year. I am sorry to say it is equally 

 attractive to pigeons. Two years ago the pigeons 

 ate off every bud as soon as it appeared, yet last 

 year and this year they have not touched it ; and 

 why they should have stripped it one year and 



