A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 



on the ground a border of winter-blooming orange 

 ice-plant, Mesemhryanthemum auranticum, gives in- 

 tensity to the color scheme. 



Standing at the street end of the cement walk 

 leading from the street to the entrance-porch, this 

 picture in flowers must be the envy of many a 

 Californian whose eyes are set toward' subtropical 

 beauty. The cement walk is bordered by a three- 

 foot strip of the small creeping Convolvulus mauri- 

 tanicus, now entirely green but later a sheet of 

 gray-blue bloom from April until October. At the 

 extreme right stands a long, loosely arranged group 

 of magnificent aloes, in several varieties, holding 

 great spears of scarlet and yellow flowers far above 

 their twisting leaves. Below these are other and 

 smaller aloes, with leaf colors which one might 

 think reminiscent of a dusky sunset — a remark- 

 able glow, even a suggestion of rose in these leaves 

 of blue-green. Before this aloe group are great 

 heaps and mounds, lower and higher — but never 

 higher than two feet — of great white things, such 

 as Centaurea maritima, and beyond all these, 

 nearer to the house, sheets of sweet alyssum in 

 full bloom, with a broad line of gray-foliaged bor- 

 der plants, santolina, behind which thrive a va- 

 riety of sedums and crassula two feet high, and 

 the rare Portulacaria afra. 



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