MAY 



93 



south, is a large bed of the old Moss-Eose, which in this 

 position does exceedingly well. The large branches are 

 partly pegged down, .and they are not pruned back very 

 hard. Behind the fountain, away from the house, are 

 bamboos, Japanese grasses, and low-growing, shrubby 

 Spiraeas ; the smallest gardens should not be without 

 some of these, more especially S. thunbergi, so precious for 

 its miniature early flowers and its lovely decorative foliage, 

 and very useful for picking and sending away. Clethra 

 (Sweet Pepper Bush) is also a useful little shrub, as it 

 flowers in July, when watering helps it to bloom well. 

 But I have only to refer you again and again to the 

 ' English Flower Garden.' If you study this, you will 

 never lack variety or plenty, whatever your soil, or your 

 situation, or your aspect no, nor even your nearness to 

 that deadly enemy of plant life, a smoky town. 



A lovely spring-flowering shrub is Exochorda grandi- 

 flora. I can most conscientiously say, ' Get it.' It is per- 

 fectly hardy ; the flowers, full-blown and in bud, are of 

 an exquisitely pure white, and the foliage is light-green, 

 delicate, and refined. 



One of the most precious of May flowers, and one not 

 nearly enough grown, is the early Dutch Honeysuckle. 

 It is nearly white, though it dies off yellow. I have 

 named it in the lists, but it deserves, if only for picking, a 

 place in every garden. Being an early bloomer, it re- 

 quires a warm place, and would do admirably against the 

 low wall of any greenhouse. Those precious frontages to 

 greenhouses, in large places and in what I call ' gardeners' 

 gardens,' are so often left unused, neat, empty, and bare. 

 On these wasted places many lovely things would grow, 

 and none better than this beautiful Dutch Honeysuckle, 

 with its double circles of blooms, its excellent travelling 

 qualities, and its powerful sweet scent, unsurpassed by 

 anything, It is, I suppose, like many things, better for 



