OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN 31 



are fulgens (this, I remember, bloomed last year, but was 

 cut by frost), most dazzling of scarlets in the garden, 

 luscomheanum and campylocarpum. I even induced the 

 royally beautiful AucMandi to survive through three un- 

 protected winters. The latest novelty I am trymg\%Sm.ir- 

 no'wi, large-leaved, but reported very slow-growing, with 

 big pink flowers. But the great Rhododendrons cannot 

 be introduced too carefully, even too sparingly into the 

 rock-garden. Almost invariably their growth is either 

 rounded and lumpish, or straggling and gawky. Their 

 leafage, too, when the brief glory of the flowers is gone, is 

 leaden, dull and depressing. For my part, I detest and flee 

 the vast pies and puddings of Rhododendron that prevail 

 in all parts of England where the soil admits ponticum, 

 catawbiense and their hybrids as almost wild plants. 'And 

 I 'm sure it 's no ill-breeding,' as the classic poem has it, 

 'if at these repulsive pies, Our offended gorges rise.' 

 They are terribly overdone ; the blaze of them in bloom 

 is overwhelming ; for the remaining eleven months of the 

 year they make mere humped domes of lead, gloomy, 

 uninteresting, and undistinguished by any countervailing 

 grace of line, form, or carriage. 



It is with the smaller species that Rhododendron comes 

 to its own in the rock-garden. And yet I must not shrink 

 from the truth. I almost dislike the Alpenrose. In fact, 

 I do. I have no notion why, but for this glory of the 

 Alps I can muster no affection at all — hardly even esteem. 

 Its growth is generally straggling, and I am not fond of 

 the flowers. And this coldness is not due to the fact that 

 neither ferrugineum nor hirsutum ever enjoys itself in my 

 gardens ; for I like the plants as little in full riot on 

 the slopes of the Oberland as I do in sickly dwindling 

 specimens on my rock-work. And so let me leave them 

 to others. Perhaps their rather harsh colour, not chalky 

 exactly, nor magenta, but to me mysteriously acrid and 



