SEPTEMBER 211 



Among the meteorological notanda of the present 

 season (1907), the following is not the least A sunless 

 remarkable. On the night of September 3-4, summer 

 in a garden not more than thirty or forty feet above 

 the sea, and within three hundred yards of tide-mark, 

 situated on the south-west coast of Scotland and in 

 latitude south of Durham, the dahlia blooms were 

 blackened by frost. The district is a peculiarly mild 

 one; so much so that I have it noted of a previous 

 season that heliotropes were blooming in the open 

 border on December 4, and the earliest blossom of 

 snowdrop was gathered on the 19th. 



The persistent rainfall of the summer we have just 

 shivered through, although destructive of garden 

 brilliancy in general, has acted as a strong stimulus 

 to certain flowering plants. Herbaceous spiraeas have 

 seldom been so fine or lasted so long; herbaceous 

 phloxes have attained a stature and brilliancy quite 

 unusual ; and roses of the Kambler type, whereof 

 Dorothy Perkins is the unchallenged queen, have 

 prolonged their blooming season to an extent never 

 before experienced. Even now, at the very end of 

 September, these roses are wreathed with blossom, 

 although usually considered as summer - flowering 

 varieties. Alstromerias, as a rule, have but one fault, 

 their lovely, lily-like blooms are so fleeting; but last 

 summer they endured for many weeks, although 

 natives of a land which we usually associate with 

 torrid suns and baked soil. But these, like many 



