MAY 89 



water longer than it naturally would remain in our sand. 

 Eor really dry weather some pipes are laid on undergound 

 to a tap in another part of the garden, from which the 

 water runs into a tub at the top of the rockery for 

 watering, and the overflow falls into the hole. In 

 this way our tiny water-bed is kept moist in the dryesfc 

 weather. 



We grow in the water one of the most beautiful of our 

 river plants, the Banunculus lingua, or Water Buttercup. 

 It has a noble growth and large, shining, yeUow flowers, 

 which bloom for a long time. Its only fault is that, if 

 given the position it Ukes, it grows and increases vyith 

 weed-like rapidity, and in a small space must be ruth- 

 lessly thinned out when it begins to grow in spring, and 

 often later as well. We have in the hole Japanese 

 Primulas and Japanese Iris {Kempferi), though they do not 

 flower as well as in the dry bed above, which is the 

 hottest, dryest, most sunny place in the garden ; and the 

 only attention they get, after being planted in good leaf 

 mould, is some copious waterings when the flower-buds 

 are formed. They have the largest, finest flowers I have 

 ever seen in England. I must not forget our native 

 Eorget-me-nots, which, Tennyson says, ' grow for happy 

 lovers.' It is a much more persistent flowerer than the 

 garden kind. In his ' Lancashire Garden ' Mr. Bright 

 praises very much the Primula japonica, and nothing 

 can be more charming and unusual than the whorled 

 growth of its flower-stems. He calls the blossoms crimson ; 

 I call them dark magenta — at any rate, they have that 

 purple tinge which spoils so many reds. Where they 

 really look well is in a moist ditch or on the damp half- 

 shaded edge of a wood. If the ground is prepared for 

 them, and the white kind planted too, they sow themselves 

 in endless variety of tone from dark to light ; but they 

 are not especially suited for beds or mixing with other 



