APRIL 279 



Startled by the shower, 

 Venture from her bower, 

 Looking for Adam under perilous sky ; 

 While he hard by 



\ . Emerges from the slowly dropping blooms 



And warm delicious glooms. 



April Wth. This is a time when I always find it a 

 little difficult to keep the conservatory next the drawing- 

 room gay. The large Crinum is going off, and the Azaleas 

 are rather a bad metallic colour, which kills everything else. 

 Primula farinosa is a pretty thing if well grown ; Cineraria 

 cruenta is in full bloom, but I must get some fresh seed, 

 as the flowers have all become one shade, which they 

 were not at first. A charming, sweet little shrub which 

 looks something like a white Daphne is Pittosporum 

 tobira ; it comes in usefully at this time. We have had 

 in succession since January pots of Polygonatum 

 (Solomon's Seals), and they all go out into the reserve 

 bed to be taken up another time, so are not at all wasteful. 

 I have never had Forsythia suspensa so good in the 

 garden as this year. The shrub is one golden mass, and 

 when picked in long branches and peeled it is quite 

 admirable in water. I suppose its being so good is 

 partly an accident of the weather, partly that after flower- 

 ing last year it was cut back hard, and partly that we 

 twisted black thread about it to prevent the birds eating 

 the buds in February, which they invariably do here, both 

 with this plant and with Prunus pissardi. Spir&a 

 thunbergi responds in the most delightful way to constant 

 pruning. The more the dear little thing is cut, the better 

 it seems to do. That is the real secret of all these early- 

 flowering shrubs; they do not exhaust themselves then 

 with leaf-making and growth. Under those shrubs where 

 there are no Violets and no white Arabis, the common 

 Lungwort (Pulmonaria) makes an exceedingly pretty 



