104 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



in the summer, wanting nothing beyond thinning-out 

 and transplanting, and dividing in the autumn. The pale- 

 blue and the white are even more beautiful than the dark- 

 blue and the red-purple ; but they are all worth having, 

 with their quaint-shaped flowers, so unlike other things. 

 Every year, towards the end of May, I put in cuttings of 

 Lavender and Eosemary. If the weather is dry, they are 

 what gardeners call ' puddled-in,' which means that the 

 ground is very much wetted first. In this way I have 

 a constant supply of young plants. Eosemary is only 

 really hardy with us if planted under the protection of 

 large shrubs ; the keen winds of March cut them off in 

 the open. Many other plants can be increased in the 

 same way early flowering shrubs such as Ribes san- 

 guinum, the Forsythias, &c. Last spring, in Suffolk, I 

 saw a charming little garden-hedge made of Ribes san- 

 guinum, all one brilliant mass of its flowers. This is quite 

 worth trying ; its success would depend on its being 

 sharply pruned back the moment after flowering and 

 before its seeds ripen. If your cuttings take, you can 

 make your hedge in October. It is rather a repetition of 

 the well-known and often-seen Sweetbriar hedge, which 

 is all the better in a light soil for cutting back the young 

 growths in July as well as for the spring pruning. It is 

 a very good plan this month to take off some of the 

 shoots apt to be too numerous that sprout on the 

 pruned-back creepers, such as White Jasmine, Vines 

 of all kinds, and Bignonia radicans, which handsome 

 old garden favourite buds so late that the flowers do not 

 expand unless treated in this way. 



May 2%nd. Not the smallest and dryest garden should 

 be without Stachys lanata, a white woolly leaved plant, 

 called Eabbit's Ears by cottage children, and particularly 

 attractive to some people, who through life retain the 

 love of a child for something woolly and soft. Certain 



