196 HOME AND GARDEN 



when once planted will always sow themselves 

 afresh. The pretty lilac-flowered, grey-leaved Cat- 

 mint {Nepeta Mussoni) should have been named 

 among the sand-loving plants with hoary foUage. 

 It is a capital thing anywhere, but especially on 

 dry sunny banks ; it groups charmingly with 

 Lavender bushes, and I like to have near it, for 

 harmony of flower-colour as well as for its own 

 sake, and because it also loves our combination of sun 

 and sand, the pretty little Sisyrinchium Bermudiana, 

 With the Catmint should be associated the hand- 

 some herb Hyssop, fuU of its purple flower-spikes 

 in early autumn ; a plant that seems to have a 

 singular attraction for the pale-broTO bumble-bees. 

 Oriental Poppies like the light gi'ound if deeply 

 worked, and so do the greater number of the flag- 

 leaved Irises. These are best divided and trans- 

 planted every fourth year ; their rhizomes grow fast, 

 and if left longer, crowd upon one another so 

 closely that the roots cannot find nourishment ; 

 they then make known their discomfort by refusing 

 to flower and by showing starved-looking fohage. 



A very pretty plant is Stohcca purpurea ; it well 

 deserves to be better known and more often grown. 

 It has prickly, silvery, rather Thistle-like fohage, 

 but the flower, instead of being disappointingly 

 small in proportion to the plant as in Thistles, is 

 wide open hke a large loose Daisy, and its colour, 

 the faintest tinge of purple pervading white, is 



