A GARDEN DIARY 89 



which seems to reach them through their two- 

 foot blanket of peat. 



Even when well grown and long established, 

 rhododendrons hardly seem to me to be quite 

 the ideal thing for these rustling oak copses of 

 ours. We plant them, partly for the sake of 

 their colour in its season, partly because we need 

 evergreens, and the common ponticum is one 

 of the best of evergreens, but they seem to me 

 to remain exotics, and not altogether happy 

 ones. There are two distinct varieties of scenery 

 with both of which rhododendrons consort 

 magnificently. One is heavy, boggy ground, 

 deep, dark, and oozy, under large trees, into 

 the recesses of which they can settle, spread- 

 ing out in all directions, re-rooting them- 

 selves as they choose in the black earth ; their 

 flowers catching the divided sunrays, and turn- 

 ing every hollow place into a pool of colour. 

 Another, and a yet more ideal place is a steep 

 hillside, provided that it is furnished with 

 boulders, and provided that the said boulders 

 are not of limestone. There is one such hill- 

 side above the Bay of Dublin which I find it 

 difficult to believe might not be able to hold its 

 own, even though confronted with any similar 

 extent of ground amongst the Himalayas them- 

 selves. It begins as a ravine, rising out of 

 a rather thin wood. As one mounts the 

 ravine opens, and the trees fall back. The 



