86 A YEAR IN A LANCASHIRE GARDEN. 



Nov. 28. We wake to find snow all thick upon 

 the ground, over lawn and flower-bed, and the 

 children are out betimes rolling up huge snowballs 

 on the grass. This snow is the best thing possible 

 for the garden, for we have already had a night or 

 two of sharp frost, which killed all it could reach 

 of our herbaceous plants. "Autumn's last delights 

 were nipped by early cold," as in the garden of 

 Lord Houghton's " Old Manorial Hall," and the 

 Dahlias and the Fuchsias were all shrivelled into 

 brown unsightly tufts. We have covered up the 

 Fig-trees on the wall. We have trenched up the 

 shrubbery borders. We have done our last plant- 

 ing a Catalpa in one place, a Paulownia in 

 another and some more fruit-trees in the orchard. 

 We have planted our bulbs and sowed our autumn 

 annuals for spring gardening. I was so pleased with 

 the Nemophila bed of last May that I am repeating 

 the experiment on a larger scale. I shall have one 

 bed of Nemophila, and another of Virginian Stock. 

 I shall have a bed of pink Saponaria edged with 

 white. Along the Vine border I shall stretch a 

 ribbon of white Saponaria, blue Myosotis, pink 

 Silene, and many-coloured Sweet Peas. 



Then again, at the end of the grass walk, where 

 it runs up against the hedge of the croft, I am 



