cold frames to await the spring, when they will be early started into 
growth, and should begin to bloom in May. 
This family of Pentstemons are tender perennials, and where the 
winter climate is severe should be treated in the same manner as the 
Salvia Azurea Grandiflore. 
Like the snap-dragons, they have voracious appetites, and we fed 
them every three weeks, alternating Bon Arbor and liquid manure. 
If lifted in the autumn and shaded for a few days, they would prob- 
ably flower through the winter in a greenhouse. 
We took cuttings the end of August from plants bearing the most 
beautiful flowers; they rooted well and are now thrifty plants, passing 
the winter in hotbeds. Once grown, it is best to perpetuate the Pent- 
stemons like the Petunias from cuttings, unless there is abundant space 
in the cold frames, the old plants being so large. 
When these Pentstemons have found a place in the garden they 
will surely be retained, not only because of their beauty when growing, 
but because of their quality for decorative purposes, lending themselves 
especially to the Japanese manner of arrangement 
Salisbury, England. "The Close." 
September 16, 1913. 
My dear : 
I had one of the most delightful afternoons of my life at Miss 
Jekyll's. Her house and setting are ideal, the pink and blue portions 
of her borders ravishingly beautiful. It is the gray that makes it so 
perfect, great masses of silvery gray, stachys, cineraria, catmint, 
lavender, centaurea, sage, etc., in much greater values than I had sup- 
posed, but it makes the picture perfect 
We use too many flowers in proportion to foliage. For the red 
portions of her great border I did not care. I have been all over 
England, and have seen thousands of gardens. I am more than ever 
optimistic about American gardens. We can have better ones, and 
less monotonous. Such frightful examples of red geranium bedding 
were never seen at home, even in Newport or Bar Harbor. And such 
color jumbles — a great mass of something in full bloom is the ideal 
(my own, you will say, come to judge me!), but no, no! I have 
seen billions of calceolarias, magenta, pentstemons, large flowering 
begonias, monstrous daisies and dahlias, horrible purplish-blue lobelias 
