GROUPS OF GARDEN FLOWERS 21 



in June, when they seem to go on without any check whatever, and are 

 just right for blooming next spring." These remarks by an authority 

 upon the subject must be helpful to my readers. The bunch-flowered 

 Primroses are of many colours, soft and dainty tones, pure white, 

 intense orange, and so forth. 



Mr. G. F. Wilson of Weybridge has raised a race of blue Primroses, 

 not the blue of the Gentian, but a very beautiful series of colours, some- 

 times purple blue with crimson eye, and several of the varieties have been 

 named, such as Oakwood Blue, all being well placed against moss-covered 

 stones to bring out the distinctive flower colouring. A deep red or 

 crimson is a good colour to obtain. 



The double Primroses are not easy to manage. They are more suc- 

 cessful in a moist climate, such as that of Ireland, than in drier positions. 

 The old Pompadour, a perfectly double crimson flower, is delightful; 

 it is a quaint, old-fashioned primrose, and happy is he who can get large 

 tufts of it. Unfortunately it is not a success in the south. This 

 variety, more than any other, requires a moist climate and cool soil. 

 Double lilac, lavender, white, and yellow, are very charming also. 



The Polyanthus is a form of the Primrose, and may be grown in the 

 same way. It is not so effective in the garden, but good colours occur 

 in a well-chosen selection, and the gold-laced, hose-in-hose, and other 

 old forms are very quaint. 



Rockets, Sweet or Double. These are delightful, old-world flowers, 

 filled with fragrance. A famous grower of them in Ireland, the Rev. 

 Denis Knox of Yirginian Rectory, says, in the Garden : " I at present 

 possess in quantity six varieties : the French white ; the Scotch, or 

 Eglinton, &s it is often called (this kind has, I may say, always a quaint 

 trace of lilac at the top of its spike) ; the true old pure double white ; 

 the pale lilac, the most vigorous grower of all ; the true old lilac, now 

 nearly extinct (I was searching for it for thirty years, and at last dis- 

 covered it, to my great joy, in an old garden in Westmeath) ; and the 

 lower -growing, shorter-spiked purple. This, I recollect, used to be 

 called Parkes' Rocket. ... I have had (in a place I lived at thirty years 

 ago) the old pure white and the old lilac twenty-four inches in spike. 

 Here I have never gone beyond nineteen inches. Many people make the 

 mistake of allowing the side shoots to remain on. This gives the plant 

 rather a weedy appearance, and, of course, takes from the length and 

 majesty of the main spike. Double Rockets are essentially plants for 

 rich, deep, moist soils. They are plants that cannot be left alone, or 

 left long in the same soil. Every third year, at least, they should be 

 taken up and divided, placed in new soil, with which plenty of well- 

 rotted cow manure and some lime rubbish have been incorporated. 

 They strike very freely from cuttings put down as soon as they begin 

 to push in the spring, but they divide so satisfactorily that now that I 

 have plenty of them I do not go to the trouble of making cuttings. 

 They have an enemy in the shape of a nasty white grub, which attacks 

 them and eats out the blossom-spikes when they are about nine inches 

 or so high. It must be searched for and destroyed. The curling of 

 the leaves infallibly shows its presence. It would be, indeed, a pity 



