I can forgive some of my plants for their un- 

 intended lapses and breaches of convention. Two 

 or three anemones last year each had a couple of 

 flowers on them from November all through the 

 winter and this year they are doing likewise. A 

 polyanthus and a hepatic a have also been in flower 

 since November, and as I write we are in Christ- 

 mas week. How cheering it is to see even an 

 isolated flower in the open at this season of the 

 year in England! 



I have put out for early flowering a bed, a 

 small one, of hepaticas all by themselves, another 

 good-sized one of polyanthus, and a third of for- 

 get-me-nots, which should, in their pure, sweet 

 blue, look quite charming in a mass. The hepat- 

 icas, too, are such pretty welcome little flowerets, 

 blooming as. they do in frost and snow when 

 there is so little bright coloring otherwise to be 

 seen. All three plants named, moreover, are so 

 truly serviceable, and may be described when the 

 spring bedding-out season comes in like the 

 empty bottles which are called Marines, " They 

 have done their duty and are ready to do it again." 

 They have only to be laid away in the ground 



