JULY 131 



the following year in a way that does admirably for 

 picking. 



A few years ago I brought from Paris some bulbs of 

 Ornithogalum pyramidale, the flower-spikes of which are 

 sold at the end of June in the Paris flower market under 

 the name of L'6p6e de la Vierge. I have never seen the 

 plant grown anywhere in England as I have grown it, 

 and yet in every way it is quite one of the most satis- 

 factory flowers for picking that I know. If you gather it 

 just as one flower is coming out, the whole of the long 

 spike grows and flowers in water up to the very top, 

 bending and curling about, and assuming the most 

 graceful curves. No one can grow a better flower plant 

 to send to London. It has one fault in the garden — the 

 leaves droop and turn rather spotty and yellow before the 

 flower comes quite to its prime ; but this defect can 

 indeed be forgiven for the sake of its many merits. I 

 cultivate it nearly as I do the above-mentioned Lilies ; 

 only, when the bulbs are dug up, we place the small ones 

 at once in a nursery, but the large ones are well dried in 

 the sun and not replanted till October. A mulching 

 when they begin to show through in the spring does 

 them good. Mr. Barr sells the bulbs, but I cannot say if 

 his are as fine as those I brought from Paris six or seven 

 years ago. I know no summer-flowering shrub so beauti- 

 ful as the Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora. I have 

 tried over and over again to grow it, but it does badly 

 and then dies. It is not the soil only, for I once saw a 

 magnificent specimen growing under a wall at Ascot, 

 where the soil is the same as ours. I suppose it never 

 has had quite a good enough place. It should be cut 

 back hard every spring, and, when growing freely, wants 

 much watering ; I am told that constant applications of 

 soot-water do it good. I daresay I shall succeed in 



time. 



k2 



