260 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



harmonized. Lavender was a rare plant in the spacious times of 

 Great Ehzabeth." Its very name carries with it a sense of whole- 

 someness and the pure fragrance of Nature, and we cannot but rejoice 

 that good taste and good gardening (which in cultural matters was 

 never more to the forefront than now) have bidden us to restore what 

 had been so neglected, though happily not lost, to its rightful place 

 in our gardens. 



Uses in the Garden. — There are so many ways in which Lavender 

 may be used, sometimes as a low hedge to divide the well-filled 

 ranks of the kitchen garden from the flowers planted on either side 

 of a central pathway : sometimes grouped in the herbaceous border, 

 to give the needful, touch of silver-grey which serves to lighten the 

 colours of bright -hued flowers, or it may be planted with excellent 

 effect to lean over the top of a retaining wall. It will even bear 

 clipping like box to make a formal edging (if it should be desired) in 

 a garden design of purple and grey. A Lavender walk is perhaps the 

 most delightful of all in June, when the soft spikes are beginning to 

 push up from every branchlet and the light passing of a hand over the 

 bushes stirs the faint scent of the young growth; in August, when the 

 first early flowers are breaking with blue, and the time has come to cut 

 the sheaf of spikes which will fill a house for many a day with the 

 incense of their fuller perfume; or again, later on when the quiet grey 

 of the leaves suits the mood of the sombre winter's day. Memory with 

 many of us recalls such a Lavender walk backed by a hedge of China 

 roses — a mingling which we shall find very hard to surpass in its 

 delicate harmony. There are few months in the year, save in the dead 

 of winter, when roses are not to be gathered there, but it is in the 

 autumn, when flowers are few, that a plantation of this kind is most 

 precious. It must be rememb'ered that Lavender does not last in per- 

 fection, as I think I reminded you before, for ever. It must be cared 

 for, or it will lose all too soon the soft swell of its kindly outline and 

 grow twisted and gnarled and unsightly for lack of timely clipping. 

 For this work there are two seasons : in the autumn if a harvest of 

 flower spikes is looked for in August, but if merely the grey tone of 

 leafage is wanted, the bushes must be cut back in spring before the 

 young growth has had time to start. And now you may like to know 

 what flowers look well in association for garden decoration. China 

 roses I have already mentioned, and they are always happy in conjunc- 

 tion. Clarkia pink, both single and double, look well. All pink flowers 

 and roses are good, the well-known rose * Madame Testout ' being one 

 of the best. 



Seeing that I hold a brief for Lavender, may I be pardoned if I tell 

 you of an incident that happened at the Chester Assizes last March. 

 It was headed " Lavender as a Vegetable," and it was decided by Lord 

 Coleridge that it was one. The ruling arose during the hearing of a 

 case in which a poor man had hawked Lavender without a licence. The 

 defence was that the Pedlars' Act exempts vegetables, and therefore no 



