86 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



MAY 



Vegetable growing — Autumn annuals — Spring seeds— Description 

 of my own garden— Weeding — Houses facing west — Flowering 

 shrubs — May flowers — Sundials— Eoses and Creepers— History 

 of the Tulip — Salads — Plant shelters — Sweet Verbena — Blue 

 Anemones — Packing cut flowers — A few simple receipts — Plants 

 in pots. 



May 1st. — I have not mentioned during these spring 

 months the cultivation of the kitchen garden. I leave 

 that entirely to my gardener, only helping throughout 

 the year by looking up in Vilmorin's book (mentioned in 

 January) any special vegetables which are not generally 

 cultivated in England, and noting any deficiency in 

 quantity or quahty. No one can expect everything to be 

 equally successful every season, as an unfortunate sowing, 

 a dry fortnight, a late frost, or a cold wind are answerable 

 for a good deal in any garden. It is always some con- 

 solation if one finds one's failures are shared by one's 

 neighbours, because then it is more likely to be from 

 some atmospheric cause than from one's own bad cultiva- 

 tion. All the same, the best gardeners have the fewest 

 failures. 



We do not sow Sunflowers and many autumn-flowering 

 annuals before the first week in May. For out-of-the-way 

 hardy and half-hardy seeds I find no one is more to be 

 relied on than Mr. Thompson of Ipswich. His packets 

 of seed are not so large nor so expensive as those of 

 some other first-olass nurserymen, a great advantage for 



