OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN 29 



are, in my limy soil — limy in spite of all the most elaborate 

 diggings and delvings and drainings (for lime is no less 

 difficult to exorcise than love) — only two exceptions to the 

 general rule of sickliness among my Azaleas. Bog-haunt- 

 ing viscosa have I tried, fragrant with white flowers in 

 late summer ; fiery orange caletidulacea, tawny sinensis, 

 rosy apple- blossomed Vaseyi, profuse magenta- flowered 

 amoena. And all, all are modified failures here, in the 

 course of a year or two. One exception is the living fire 

 of Azalea mollis, most blazing and diverse of all flame- 

 flowers. And the other, by a strange unexpected freak, is 

 the delicate Azalea indica itself. Now Azalea indica is the 

 ordinary greenhouse Azalea; and, when I imported a 

 quantity from Japan, I laughed at myself for daring to 

 plant them out in the open immediately. Not one of 

 them in five years has ever suffered from cold or drought 

 or lime or damp ; rarely have any of them failed to pro- 

 duce abundance of bloom. And this though they are 

 planted in merely ordinary garden soil, permeated with 

 lime, and though quite unsheltered and unprotected. 

 Some are under a wall, it is true, but the rest, among 

 which are some of the most brilliant, stand out in the 

 open, dead level, heavy-soiled plain of the bog-garden. 

 And this once more encourages me to proclaim my gospel. 

 Half-hardy plants, imported from cold districts, prove 

 often to be as hardy as the most robust of natives. From 

 the icebound plain of Tokio all importations of delicate 

 species are, a fortiori, perfectly willing and able to resist 

 the utmost rigours of our far less rigorous winters. I 

 even have hopes that I may prove this of NelumUum 

 speciosum. I am importing the Holy Lotus from its most 

 northerly limit of distribution, in the trust that thus its 

 tubers may be victorious over our pale climate. 



In point of fact, I cherish a dream that all gardeners are 

 far too little venturesome about attempting paradoxical 



