SEPTEMBER 23 



One of the few things that looked really well in the 

 garden when I came home was the Cape annual, Nemesia 

 strumosa. The dryness apparently had suited the 

 flowering capabilities of the annual, but, finding that it 

 was forming no seed, I watered it daily, as it is one of 

 the plants from which it is well worth while to save the 

 seed, selecting it from the best-coloured flowers. The 

 seed wants a good deal of care in the gathering, as it 

 is so very ephemeral — unripe one day and gone the 

 next. For a person of my age, it means groping on 

 the ground each morning with one's spectacles on. 

 I certainly must add it to the list of annuals worth 

 growing in a small garden. "We sow it in place the 

 middle of May. 



September 7th. — The old-fashioned Zauschneria Gali- 

 fornica, when well grown, is a very pretty plant, with 

 its soft gray leaves and scarlet flowers. I have had it 

 for years, and it has stood any amount of moving about 

 into different places. It never died, and yet never 

 flowered. I grew it on rockwork, I grew it in shade, I 

 grew it in the sun. It formed bushy little plants, but 

 never had a single flower. My patience was nearly 

 coming to an end, and I fell back on the gardener's 

 usual solace — that the soil did not suit it. When I paid 

 a visit to Mr. Thompson, of Ipswich, I found it flowering 

 most satisfactorily, and learnt from him the eternal 

 story that what it wanted was good feeding. It should 

 have very good, rich soil, plenty of manure, and be put 

 in a place that is free of damp in winter. This is the 

 difficulty with so many of the foreign plants we try to 

 grow. They want damp in their flowering-time, when 

 we are dry; and dryness in the winter, when we are 

 wet. I came home, broke up my Zauschneria, planted 

 it on the edge of a raised vine-border, in full sunshine 

 and with very well rotted manure. Helped, no doubt. 



