A YEAR IN A GARDEN ON N.-W. COAST OF ROSS-SHIRE. 8l 
April. Their seasons are May and June and into July, but even the 
very best of them hardly come up to the choicest of the newer species. 
I have had, for the last ten days or fortnight, some perfect marvels 
in the way of big, eight to nine feet high,i?. Thomsonii bushes smothered 
from top to bottom with their dazzling blooms, and among them, 
as a contrast, a nice bush of R. Falconeri, with twenty-one perfect 
white blossoms, so tropical-looking, as if they could never be grown 
but under glass, and each truss about as big as a child's head. Also 
a tall R. rubiginosum, more like a spotted fancy Pelargonium out of a 
greenhouse — and who could believe it to be even a connexion of those 
grand varieties of R. arboreum which have bloomed all through 
April ? — and especially one whose tally calls it a Shilsoni cross, but 
which is, I think, ' Gill's Triumph,' which really, without exaggerating, 
is, I should say, the most perfect example of a Rhododendron, both 
as regards shape, texture, and colour, I have ever seen. One of the 
most fascinating things in the way of Rhododendrons which April 
produced were some sprays of R. campanulatum brought in by my 
daughter, with large bright mauve, somewhat bell-shaped blooms ; 
but the foliage was its strong point, the upper sides of its leaves being 
a glossy dark green, while the under sides were as if composed of 
dull orange velvet, and the contrasts between the mauve and the 
green and the old gold were something not to be forgotten ! The 
pale-yellow Rhododendrons have also been striking towards the end 
of this month — viz. R. campylocarpum, R. ambiguum, and R. triflorum. 
The yellows, all told (if one does not include the deciduous varieties 
usually called Azaleas), are but a comparatively small group, but 
yellow, not being among the ordinary evergreen rhododendron colours, 
appeals to me, especially when contrasted with the deep plum-coloured 
blooms of R. niveum and the all but blue R. Augustini, all of which 
blossomed here in April. 
In spite of these sad times, and in spite of great difficulties in 
the way of transport, I have got a nice lot of new things from my 
favourite nurseries in Ireland and Cornwall, which, if I live a few 
more years, I shall have such interest in watching ; and among other 
things I have succeeded in wintering some plants of the glorious 
blue flowering plant Myosotidium nobile from the Chatham Isles, 
and am hoping to bloom it some day, if not this summer. 
May. 
May and June are perhaps the most difficult months to tackle 
in attempting to describe even a few of the best and most striking 
of the vast multitude of trees and shrubs which blossom during those 
two months. Quite early in the month I had the following beautiful 
and more or less uncommon shrubs just smothered in bloom, viz. 
Ceanothus rigidus, Magnolia stellata, Drimys aromatica, Azara Gilliesii, 
Enkianthus campanulatus, and Osmanthus Delavayi. The Azara is a 
healthy big bush of ten feet high, reminding me just a very little of 
VOL. XLIII, G 
