MAY 103 



up and dried in the sun flower best the following year ; 

 and the finest bulbs can be planted together, the yellow 

 making a fine splotch of colour just as the yellow 

 Alyssum is over. The smaller the garden, the more 

 essential it is to get a succession in colour. Avoid many 

 white flowers in small gardens ; in roomy gardens with 

 shady corners nothing looks better than the common 

 single white and purple Eocket, raised from seed and 

 planted in bold groups. It wiU grow in very dry places, 

 but it soon gets untidy, and has to be cut back, which it 

 does not seem to mind at all. 



Tiarella cordifoUa (' Poam-flower,' Mr. Eobinson calls 

 it) is a Uttle Canadian plant which ought never to be left 

 out of any garden. 



May 19th. — This is the first day of one of the great 

 gardening interests and treats in the year — the Eoyal 

 Horticultural Show in the Temple Gardens. I go every 

 year now, and should be sorry to miss it. How odd it 

 seems, that for years and years I never went to a flower 

 show, or knew anything about them, and now they have 

 become one of the interests of my life ! The great 

 attraction this year is the revival of what are called 

 old-fashioned late single TuUps — Breeders, Flames, &c. 

 Those who like to buy the bulbs, ordering them care- 

 fully by the catalogue, may have their gardens gay with 

 Tulips for over two months, certainly the whole of April 

 and May. The quantity of Apples, for so late in the 

 season, was what struck me as almost the most remark- 

 able thing at the show. One of the great growers told 

 me that he had tried every conceivable plan for keeping 

 Apples, but that nothing answered so well as laying them 

 simply on open, well-aired shelves in a fruit-house that 

 was kept free from frost. 



Tradescantia virginioa (Spiderworts) are plants that 

 do admirably in light soils, and flower two or three times 



