50 MY GARDEN 



interesting ; while of the orange trees and camellias 

 I cannot yet speak with authority. But an orange 

 tree cast out into my nursery, and allowed to do as 

 it pleased there under a shady wall, astonished me 

 this year. As a pot-plant my gardener muddled it ; 

 yet, in the open, it began to grow rapidly, and now, 

 in October, is set with flower-buds. I shall en- 

 courage this specimen by giving it a very important 

 position beside the garden-room ; and the tasselled 

 and feathered hyacinths will creep to its feet, and the 

 azaleas will urge it to persist and get established. 



Camellias, of course, prosper here, but everybody 

 tells me the same story : that they don't bud up 

 properly out of their pots in the open air. I cannot 

 understand this, and am watching with interest to 

 see what line they will take with me. The splendours 

 of azalea pass after spring ; but lily and gladiolus 

 follow, though it is rather hot in summer for the 

 former family. Longiflorum does the best of them 

 here of course renewed annually. Life is too short 

 to potter about with all the stupid little bulbs this 

 lily arranges after flowering. Around these beds I 

 usually carry a cheerful annual to brighten things up 

 after the azaleas have done. For this purpose a high- 

 class lobelia does well, or sanvitalia procumbens. This 

 little trailer much appreciates peat, and pleases nearly 

 everybody with its masses of tiny, golden-rayed, and 

 black-eyed flowers, like the most miniature of rud- 

 beckias. But it has never caught Professor Nicholson's 

 eye ; indeed, I am often shocked to find some special 

 favourite of mine has failed to earn the supreme 



