MAY 



95 



in March and in September. I always save my own seed of 

 Love-in-the-Mist ; but in doing that, you must be careful 

 to mark the best, largest, and bluest flowers. Then what 

 you keep is far better than what you can buy ; but, unless 

 you take this trouble, seeds grown in one place degenerate. 

 To the right of the long borders are two large Rose beds 

 with Eoses old-fashioned rather than very large ones. 

 The Hybrid Perpetuals do so badly in the light soil ; but 

 here are G-loria Mundi, Cottage-maid, the dear little 

 pink Rose de Meaux, the large white Cabbage, and so 

 on. Beyond the Eose beds is a covered walk, made 

 with stems of small fir-trees bound together with wire 

 an attempt at a pergola, but riot by any means as solid 

 as I should like. On this grow vines, hardy climbing 

 Eoses, Honeysuckles, and a dark claret-coloured Vine 

 (which looks well), Aristolochia, Clematis (various), and, to 

 make a little brightness in spring, two Kerrias. The 

 single one, which is the original Japanese plant, is very 

 uncommon, and yet so pretty much better for wedging 

 than the double kind, the old Jews-mallow of cottage 

 gardens. 



All these plants want constant watching, pruning, 

 manuring, chalking, mulching. One ought always to be 

 on the watch to see if things do not look well, and why 

 they do not. The great thing to remember is, that if 

 a plant is worth growing at all it is worth growing 

 healthily. A Daisy or a Dandelion, fine, healthy, and 

 robust, as they hold up their heads in the spring sunshine, 

 give more pleasure and are better worth looking at than 

 the finest flower one knows that looks starved, drooping 

 and perishing at the flowering- time. With many plants 

 here, if not watered at the flowering-time, the buds droop 

 and the flowers never expand at all. 



We have been eating lately, as Spinach, and found it 

 quite delicious, the leaves of the Chicory, which Sutton 



