250 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



several other Orchids that flower in the early part of the 

 year. 



To-day there have come up from the country — not 

 from my own home, which is too dry, but from near 

 Salisbury — some branches cut from an old Thorn or Apple 

 tree, and covered with long hoary-grey moss. I have put 

 them into an old ginger- jar without water, and in this 

 way they will last through the winter. They stand now 

 against a red wall, where they look exceedingly well. 



December 10th. — There has been in this year's 

 ' Guardian ' a succession of monthly papers on a Surrey 

 garden, written by Miss Jekyll of Munstead Wood, 

 Godalming. I give her address, as she now sells her 

 surplus plants, all more or less suited to light soils, 

 to the management of which she has for many years 

 past given special attention. These papers have much 

 illuminating matter in them, and are called ' Notes from 

 Garden and Woodland.' AU the plants and ilowers 

 about which Miss Jekyll writes she actually grows on 

 the top of her Surrey hill. Her garden is a most 

 instructive one, and encouraging too. She has gone 

 through the stage, so common to all ambitious and 

 enthusiastic amateurs, of trying to grow everything, and 

 of often wasting much precious room in growing 

 inferior plants, or plants which, even though they may 

 be worth growing in themselves, are yet not worth the 

 care and feeding which a light soU necessitates if they 

 are to be successful. 



This, to me, rather delightful characteristic of ama- 

 teurs in every art was severely condemned by Mr. 

 Euskin in my youth, when he said that the amateur 

 sketcher always attempted to draw the panorama of Eome 

 on his thumb-nail, instead of humbly trying to reproduce 

 what was at his own door. The practice is just as 

 common in gardening as in music and painting. 



