NOVEMBER 89 



a shelf. All the same I imagine it would be possible to 

 sow the Ice-plant so late that it might go on growing 

 through the winter in a pot, though its beauty can never 

 be so great as on a broiling-hot summer's day. 



I agree with every word that Cowper says, and his lines 

 suggest what I want specially to urge on those who pass 

 the winter in the country. Greenhouses were new in 

 Cowper's time and the pleasure of them has probably 

 been wiped out or, at any rate, greatly diminished 

 by the way people who can afford such luxuries are now 

 always rushing away in search of sunshine in other 

 climes, and are content to come back in June and find 

 their flourishing herbaceous borders, that have been asleep 

 under manure all the winter, surpassing in luxuriance of 

 colour and form the gardens of the South. One of the 

 least helpful volumes of the large edition of Mrs. Loudon's 

 ' Lady's Flower Garden ' is the one called ' Ornamental 

 Greenhouse Plants ' so many things she recommends 

 to grow are now proved to be hardy, and so many others 

 that we now know to be well worth the trouble of 

 cultivation for flowering in the winter are omitted alto- 

 gether. I know no modern book that quite tells one 

 enough how to keep a small conservatory furnished all 

 the year round. 



Greenhouse flowers can be most interesting and 

 various, and I propose each month through the winter 

 to name fresh things as they come on and are brought 

 into the small conservatory next my sitting-room. I am 

 too ignorant to speak of any plants except those I grow. 

 The conservatory faces east and south, so it gets what sun 

 there is to be had in winter. I removed the stages that 

 were there, except two shelves close to the glass on the 

 east side. I took up the tiles and dug a bed close to the 

 north wall, which is against the drawing-room chimney, 

 and another bed on the west side of the small square. 



