SCOTTISH GARDENS 



The chief display when this picture was painted in 

 May came from the varieties of Aubrietia with their 

 hanging cushions of purple and mauve, and golden 

 Alyssum. Common things, these, yet priceless in 

 their effect and unfailing in the reward they make 

 for attention to their simple wants. A month later, 

 the purple and gold had been dimmed; a rose-coloured 

 mist had spread along the wall, created by different 

 kinds of dwarf Dianthus and Silene, with the common 

 sea-thrift of our shores ; while through the mist shone 

 stars of Arenaria and many species of saxifrage and 

 stonecrop. Dwarf bell flowers, also, spread blue 

 curtains over the stones, among the most effective 

 being the glaucous variety of Campanula garganica, 

 known as hirsuta, C. pusilla and the hybrid "G. F. 

 Wilson," C. muralis, which must now be sought for 

 under the preposterous title of C. portenschlageana. 



All these are anybody's flowers, anybody's, that 

 is, who has the wit to raise them from seed, for they 

 are not particular as to soil (though most of them 

 show gratitude for an admixture and occasional top- 

 dressing of old lime rubbish), or climate, as their 

 luxuriance in this Glasgow atmosphere amply testifies. 

 But among these commoner things are herbs, if not 

 of greater beauty, of greater rarity. Specially to 

 be commended are the little Himalayan Potentilla 

 nitida, with silvery leaves and delicate flesh-coloured 

 flowers, like miniature Tudor roses ; Myosotis rupicola, 

 an exquisite forget-me-not which likes to be wedged 

 tightly into a rock crevice; our native purple saxifrage 



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