A GARDEN DIARY 89 
which seems to reach them through their two- 
foot blanket of peat. 
Even when well grown and long established, 
thododendrons hardly seem to me to be quite 
the ideal thing for these rustling oak copses of 
ours. We plant them, partly for the sake of 
their colour in its season, partly because we need 
evergreens, and the common ponticum is one 
of the best of evergreens, but they seem to me 
to remain exotics, and not altogether happy 
ones. There are two distinct varieties of scenery 
with both of which rhododendrons consort 
magnificently. One is heavy, boggy ground, 
deep, dark, and oozy, under large trees, into 
the recesses of which they can settle, spread- 
ing out in all directions, re-rooting them- 
selves as they choose in the black earth; their 
flowers catching the divided sunrays, and turn- 
ing every hollow place into a pool of colour. 
Another, and a yet more ideal place is a steep 
hillside, provided that it is furnished with 
boulders, and provided that the said boulders 
are not of limestone. There is one such hill- 
side above the Bay of Dublin which I find it 
difficult to believe might not be able to hold its 
own, even though confronted with any similar 
extent of ground amongst the Himalayas them- 
selves. It begins as a ravine, rising out of 
a rather thin wood. As one mounts the 
ravine opens, and the trees fall back. The 
