AN EARLY WINTER GARDEN IN CALIFORNIA. 



AM in a garden on a fai'm in 

 Alameda county, near the hills, 

 and about thirty miles from San 

 Francisco. To-day is Novem- 

 ber seventh. There was a week 

 of rain a while ago, which 

 started the grass by the road- 

 side and on the hills. It has 

 grown so much now that I have just been watching 

 a little girl pulling up handfuls from under the 

 cherry tree to feed, with many a pretty whisper, to 

 a pet colt in the barn yard. 



The sky is clearest blue, and almost without a 

 cloud. The air is warm and fragrant with blooming 

 flowers. Some evenings we have a fire, and some- 

 times we do not need one. There will probably be 

 several weeks of this kind of weather — then we shall 

 expect more rain. But everything is now in good 

 warm, "growing condition,'' and the men are cul- 

 tivating in the orchard, to stir the surface and keep 

 the weeds from growing. They have begun to prune 

 the cherry trees, too, although the leaves are yet 

 green, not shrivelled or turned yellow. It will not 

 hurt the trees, this early pruning ; they get more 

 rest that way, and will bear better crops next 

 year. 



The large La Marque rose on the porch on the 

 east side of the house has about eighty , full-blown 

 roses and several hundred buds on -it. The Bank- 

 sias, both white and yellow, are still blooming a 

 little, but not like the La Marque. In the garden, 

 one can gather hundreds of roses. Among them I 

 notice Marechal Neil, La France, Duchess of Bra- 

 bant, Triumph of Luxemburg, Safrano, Appoline, 

 Jacqueminot, Rosamond, Cloth of Gold and Marie 

 Van Houtte. Down in the nursery rows, three hun- 

 dred yards north of the house, roses of all the lead- 

 ing sorts, two years old from cutting or bud are 

 blooming so abundantly that they make quite a dis- 

 tinct feature of the November landscape. 



I am very much attracted by the English ivy at 

 this season. It blooms abundantly here in great up- 

 right spikes, frequently eight or ten inches long, and 

 is continually haunted by bees, a dozen or so to every 

 cluster of the yellowish flowers. There is nothing 

 else in the garden now, not even the orange blos- 

 soms, that the bees like so well. Ivy has been planted 

 about the walls of stone churches in San Mateo and 



Marin, and covers them to the eaves. There are 

 also old sycamores in the neighborhood that are 

 completely ivy-clad. At this season such ivied walls 

 and trees are musical indeed ! 



Since the rains all the smilax vines growing over 

 bits of fence and bushes, in various places, have 

 taken a fresh start, and have thrown up long shoots 

 from the ground. There are many seedlings about 

 them, and the aforesaid little girl has gathered about 

 two ounces of seed, to sell to some florist for "pin- 

 money." There are hundreds of nasturtiums and 

 morning-glories, springing up as fast as possible 

 under the old vines, which have not yet done bloom- 

 ing. The last time I planted a lantana, it seeded 

 the ground so heavily that I have never wanted an- 

 other, even if it does "bloom all winter." 



The heliotrope bed is one of the prettiest things 

 south of the house. Not a leaf yet touched by the 

 frost, and a mass of bloom most of the time for the 

 last five years. Near by is a large vine of the Cat- 

 alonian jasmine. It comes very near being a daily 

 bloomer here, and covers a large part of the porch. 

 The only enemy is the brown scale, and a little spray- 

 ing cures that. The golden rod, grown from seeds 

 gathered in New England, seem to have lost their 

 bearing in this new climate. They grew large and 

 strong, and began to bloom in July. They bloomed 

 finely — as well as I ever saw them bloom elsewhere 

 — and went to seed, but most of them have lately 

 thrust out side-shoots, and are just begining again. 

 The pale lilac New England asters knew better. 

 They grew and bloomed all summer, but this June- 

 like weather does not seem to tempt them to an after- 

 math. There is a good deal of this second-blooming 

 here. We cut the hollyhocks all back to the ground 

 in early September, and by this time they have 

 thrown up new blooming shoots, not quite so tall, 

 but fully as floriferous as the first. The cannas need 

 no cutting back — they will bloom on for weeks to 

 come. 



There are some things that a stranger would es- 

 pecially notice in the grounds. The largest Mag)iolia 

 grandiflora, for instance, shows by its beautiful red, 

 imbricated seed-cones that it bloomed abundantly 

 in its own season, and yet there are open flowers 

 and buds on its topmost boughs. The banana, not 

 the hardy Abyssinian sort nor the dwarf, but a com- 

 mon yellow- fruited sort, stands in a sheltered spot, 



