i8o MORE POT-POURRI 



from M. Louis van Houtte, of Ghent. There are sixty 

 plants, in sixty different varieties or species. There are 

 single and double hardy Ghent Azaleas, and single 

 Azalea mollis, and double hybrids of Mollis. They 

 occupy the bed, with the exception of a clump of Phyl- 

 lostachys viridi glaucescens and Phyllostachys mitis (Bam- 

 boos) in the centre, and I can truly say there was not a 

 bad plant or a bad variety among the lot, and everyone 

 of them was full on arriving. If anyone wants a bril- 

 liant edging to a Rhododendron bed, let me commend 

 to them Azaleas Fritz QuiJiou and Gloria Mundi; the 

 former is of an extraordinarily dazzling crimson. Many 

 people are of the opinion that the flowering season of 

 Azaleas is short and soon over, but this would not 

 happen if they got a good selection from M. van Houtte. 

 I see from my diary that the first Azaleas expanded with 

 me on May 18th, and they did not finish till July 24th, 

 so that they lasted more than nine weeks. About the 

 last to open were the pink and the crimson doubles. Bijou 

 de Gertdbruggen and Louis AimS van Houtte, and the 

 lovely species Sinensis flore alba only began to expand 

 on July 16th. For those who like species, Azaleas Occi- 

 denlalis and Arborescens are both very interesting. . . . 

 'I have a great love of Heaths, but have not got 

 many of them. After considerable trouble, I got some 

 good plants of Erica arborea from Newry, which we had 

 so much admired on the hillsides of Corsica. They seem 

 to do very well here, and two of them bloomed this 

 summer ; but whether they will grow into trees in my 

 "Riviera," as they do on the shores of the Mediter- 

 ranean, I cannot yet tell. Erica australis, Erica medi- 

 terranea, and the Cornish Heath (E. vagans) are, like the 

 Hydrangeas, delightful in late autumn, and so is the 

 white Irish Dabcecia polifolia, of which we can hardly 

 have too much 



