The Taller Campanulas 
Miss Jekyll's interesting article upon the taller Campanulas Clipped 
is a most useful one for lovers of hardy plants. Spetchley Park, from an 
famous for the wonderful race of hybrid Primroses, is also the English 
home of improved developments of many of our hardy plants. Paper 
Mrs. Berkeley is a born hybridist and her unerring selection of 
the best forms has always filled me with admiration. Campanula 
lactiflora type is rather washed out in colour and is said to have 
been named from its resemblance to the bluish hue of London 
milk. Mrs. Berkeley has for some score or so of years selected 
and grown -on her seeding Campanula lactiflora until she has 
a fine race of stiff-stemmed plants which stand of themselves, 
unless an unusually heavy rainstorm sweeps over the garden 
when they are in full flower. She grows pure white forms some 
8 feet in height, but the pride of the species is the grand erect 
deep-coloured variety which is often 10 feet high, with large 
open-mouthed bells of rich purple, and seen in a mass as grown 
at Spetchley it is a glorious sight not easily forgotten. Cam- 
panula lactiflora used to grow exceptionally well at Edge Hall, 
and in one "corner of the garden the tallest of the plants were 
well up to 12 feet or 13 feet. 
At Warley I have some plants with Soldanella-like flowers, 
but this is not an uncommon occurrence. — -E. Willmott. 
The Berkeley Polyanthuse 
A fine selection of a splendid strain of garden Polyanthuses, 
or Polyanthus-Primroses, occupied the floor space of one of the 
corners of the Royal Horticultural Society Hall at Vincent 
Square, London, on Tuesday, April 25th. It was the result of 
many years of patient selection on the part of a woman — Mrs. 
Berkeley of Spetchley Hall near Worcester. Her sister, Miss 
Ellen AVillmott, is probably as well known in the States as she 
is in our own England. She is a Daffodil, a Verbena, a Tulip 
and goodness knows how many more hardy flowers as well as a 
woman. Mrs. Berkeley cannot boast of an equal number of 
aliases, and her name is not so well known, but anyone who has 
visited her famous home and spent an afternoon in her company 
must feel that they are in the presence of a keen and know- 
ledgeable gardener. Those great wide borders in the kitchen- 
garden filled with magnificent Polyanthuses of every shade and 
hue, have for a long time claimed a lion's share of her time and 
attention, with the result that she was able to show the large- 
flowering strain that appeared at the Royal Horticultural Society 
Hall on the last show day of April. There were no blues and 
if I remember right, there are none of the quaint "laced" 
varieties which once upon a time were the end-all and be-all of 
the fanciers. 
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