The Garden to the flowers of spring. Tere also are cultivated even more 
in Spring successfully than in the South such warmth-loving plants as the 
Phlox, Pentstemon, Carnation, and Hollyhock. The fact of the 
flower and vegetable garden being combined probably accounts 
for the frequency with which, in Scotland, the garden is 
situated almost five or ten minutes’ walk from the house, in 
close proximity to which are only a few shrubs and flower- 
beds. 
Often the frosts of the latter part of April and the beginning 
of May are fatal to gardening. Plants which lay dormant and 
unhurt during the severest cold, and a little later began to show 
signs of life, are frequently cut down by “ Blackthorn frosts,” 
as they are called. So it was this year. We had been gladdened 
by the promise of spring, when a fourteen-degrees frost on the 
twentieth of April dealt a deadly blow to many a tender plant 
and shrub—Spirceas, to mention only one genus, were despoiled 
of their beauty for the season. But “ Nil desperandum” must 
ever be the gardener’s motto, and in spite of climatic drawbacks, 
spring flowers are usually cultivated with fairly happy results. 
In our northern capital the gardens of Princes Street vie in 
beauty with the London parks; groups of gay Tulips and the 
finer kinds of Daffodils, carpeted with purple Aubrietia, double 
white Arabis and Polyanthus, form a brilliant foreground to the 
gloomy grandeur of the Castle and its massive rock. 
It is a special charm of our Scottish gardens that the 
encircling landscape, whether composed of wood or loch or 
mountain, adds immensely to the flower effects—how much 
so can be fully realised only when seen. ‘The surroundings 
form a framework so varied that they sometimes become the 
chief characteristic of the garden. From turfy lawns, bright 
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