JUNE MAGIC 95 



quire yearly^ division, and our stock may also be in- 

 creased by means of the offsets that are freely produced. 



A fine new sort is lactiflora alba magnifica. C. lac- 

 tiflora blooms toward the end of the month and into 

 July, and has spikes of bells the colour of skimmed 

 milk. There is a white sort, too, and both are useful 

 plants but such formidable seeders that they become a 

 pest if allowed a free hand, and so we are careful to cut 

 off the flower stalks as soon as the blossoming is past. 



Of course all the June pictures have Roses as one 

 element in their composition, for they are everywhere 

 toppling over the high stone walls, smothering the low 

 ones, creating fairy halls of the pergolas and arbours; 

 and besides the climbers there are those which grow in 

 lovely long-limbed abandon as bushes, mingling freely 

 and democratically with the perennials. In front of a 

 post, which has the felicity of supporting a peach-pink 

 American Pillar Rose, grows a mass of feathery Clematis 

 recta and several plants of the sky-blue Italian Alkanet, 

 Anchusa italica. The Anchusa is a lovely thing, and no 

 plant, not excepting the Delphinium itself, decks itself 

 in a more truly azure colour. Its height varies con- 

 siderably with me according to soil and situation and its 

 own sweet will; it may be anywhere from two to four 

 feet tall. Better than the type is the Dropmore 

 variety, and better still, it is said, is that called Opal, but 

 to this I cannot testify. Anchusas have a longer con- 

 secutive period of bloom than the Delphiniums, for if 



