OCTOBER 59 



is as essential as that it should not be stagnant. The 

 young plants should be put in in the autumn preferably 

 to the spring. It is important that the soil in which the 

 roots are growing should vary as little as possible in 

 moistness, never getting dryer at one time than at 

 another.' 



The two Japanese grasses, Eulalia Japonica (variegata 

 and zebrina), do not throw up their flower panicles here 

 quite early enough to come to perfection, but I learnt 

 last summer that if the cane containing the flower (this 

 is easily distinguished by feeling a certain fulness near 

 the top) is picked and brought into the house the grass 

 will dry; it should then be peeled off and the feathery 

 panicles will display themselves (see illustration in 

 1 English Flower Garden '). They make a pretty and 

 refined winter decoration, and they are just the right size 

 to mix with the red-berried pods of Iris fcetidissima. 

 The seed-branches of Montbretias are also a pretty addi- 

 tion to a dry winter bouquet. 



Plumbago rosea is a very pretty autumn-flowering 

 greenhouse plant. It wants to be grown in a fairly 

 warm house ; but, once in flower, a cool greenhouse seems 

 to suit it well. Its growth is very different from the 

 other Plumbagos, and the pink of its flower is of an 

 unusually beautiful hue. It is not difficult to strike. 



EECEIPTS 



I have two amusing little books by the same author- 

 kind of ' Pot-Pourris ' of the early 'sixties one called 

 ' Dinners and Dinner Parties ' and the other ' The Gentle- 

 woman.' They are full of good advice and receipts, some 

 of which I think are worth copying, but the chief amuse- 

 ment is to see how the advice they give has grown and 

 spread, and is so much less really wanted than it was 



