A GARDEN DIARY 131 



walk that crosses the upper part of our copse. 

 Whether it will endure the amount of shade 

 that it will find there remains to be seen. 

 It is a sun -lover by nature, like most of its 

 tribe, but its growth is so redundant that 

 a little curtailment of it will do it no great 

 harm. Though less spreading, it requires almost 

 more room than the verbascums, for, if the 

 space it covers is less, it is a true biennial, 

 never failing in my experience to flower the 

 year after it is sown. With Verbascum olymp- 

 icum this is not so. There are some here 

 at this moment that were sown three years 

 ago, and have not yet flowered. They will 

 do so no doubt this year, and with that event 

 the cycle of their existence ends. The worst 

 is that the gap they leave when they die is 

 large ; moreover, as in the case of foxgloves, 

 the black stump is both an ugly object in 

 itself, and a difficult one to get rid of. When 

 are we to possess a really good perennial 

 foxglove I wonder ? There is a perennial 

 yellow one, but it is a poor thing, hardly 

 worthy of its name. Perennial verbascums are 

 also few in number, most of the family showing 

 a more or less aloe-like fashion of flowering. 

 In their case one is able to console oneself. 

 The imagination grows a trifle giddy in fact 

 at the thought of every mullein one has seen 



