i88 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



Saxifrages do not mind the dry springs, it is well worth 

 while to grow a quantity of London Pride, the bloom of 

 which resembles in colour a faint pink evening cloud ; 

 this is not only a satisfactory plant when picked, but it 

 will travel well, and makes a lovely support for Iceland 

 poppies and other flowers. 



October 27th. — I have been taking up to-day the 

 Lobelia cwrddnalis and L. fulgens. Ca/rdinalis is the one 

 with the dark leaves and the handsomer grower ; the 

 other flowers rather the earlier. 



October 28th. — With all the weeks and weeks of wet 

 we have had this year we have waited long for our ' St. 

 Luke's Summer ' ; and now it has come at last, it is not 

 with its usual stiU, lovely warm days. It has come fine 

 and lovely, yes ; but hand-in-hand with Jack Frost, and 

 the garden is cleared for the present of nearly every 

 bloom that was left. 



A first foggy day ! How beautiful it is in the country, 

 and what an endless pleasure when, at midday, the sun 

 conquers the mist ! — ^reminding one of Milton's simile at 

 the end of his description of his hero, Satan : — 



. . . As when the sun, new risen, 

 Looks through the horizontal misty air 

 Shorn of his beams. 



And how useful are days like these in the country ! There 

 is no such time for noticing the shapes of the groups of 

 shrubs and forms of plants, and what ought to be cut 

 away and what left as it is. Some low-growing plants 

 luxuriate so in the wet autumn days, they make us believe 

 no winter is coming — such as the foliage of Pinks and 

 Carnations, Sweet WUliams, Golden Feverfew, and last, 

 but not least, another of the treasure weeds of a garden, 

 the common Marigold. Down the kitchen garden I have 

 a patch of border given up to the Marigolds, and they 



