CHAPTEE XII 



NOVEMBER 



Giant Christmas Rose — Hardy Chrysanthemums — Sheltering tender 

 shrubs — Turfing by inoculation— Transplanting large trees — 

 Sir Henry Steuart's experience early in the century — Col- 

 lecting fallen leaves — Preparing grubbing tools — Butcher's 

 Broom — Alexandrian Laurel — Hollies and Birches — A lesson 

 in planting. 



The giant Christmas Rose (Helleborus maxcimm) is in 

 full flower ; it is earlier than the true Christmas Rose, 

 being at its best by the middle of November. It is a 

 large and massive flower, but compared with the later 

 kinds has a rather coarse look. The bud and the back 

 of the flower are rather heavUy tinged with a dull 

 pink, and it never has the pure-white colouring through- 

 out of the later ones. 



I have taken some pains to get together some 

 really hardy November - blooming Chrysanthemums. 

 The best of all is a kind frequent in neighbouring 

 cottage-gardens, and known hereabouts as Cottage Pink, 

 I believe it is identical with Emperor of China, a very 

 old sort that used to be frequent in greenhouse cmti- 

 vation before it was supplanted by the many good 

 kinds now grown. But its place is not indoors, but in 



