66 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



species, which make excellent plants for the rock- 

 garden, but the family is too large for me to stay 

 longer with them. 



It is a pleasant puzzle to think what will be the 

 eflfect of the long spring drought in the late summer 

 and autumn garden. I have no doubt that one result 

 will be to give an increased value to the summer 

 bedding plants, for the ordinary plants of summer 

 and autumn must pass away early, and then the 

 ' bedders ' will be useful, and I should think it very 

 probable that many of the spring plants, which lasted 

 so short a time and passed away so early, will flower 

 again in the autumn. Another result which I look 

 forward to with hope is, that many shrubs which 

 often cannot ripen their fruit before the frost comes, 

 and in some seasons cannot even flower, on account 

 of the shortness of the summer, will be able to do so 

 this year, when the summer may well be said to have 

 begun in April. I mentioned last month that the 

 Japanese orange. Citrus trifoliata, was in beautiful 

 flower in April; it now has plenty of Avell-formed 

 fruit, and, as in former years I have never seen the 

 fruit formed before the end of summer, I may hope 

 this year to see the fruit fully ripen. ^ For the same 



1 It produced an abundance of small, handsome fruit, full of good 

 seeds, which germinated freely. 



