SUNDOWN 
I 3 I 
August or September. A few of the reluctant early 
chrysanthemums will endure much in patience, but a 
combination of frost and rain and weeping dew is too 
severe a discipline for the hardiest flower. Thus is it 
desirable, I find, if you would be sure of your early 
chrysanthemums, to deal by them as you deal by your 
later and more magnificent blossoms: have them safely 
ensconced in pots, that is, against the shrewd frosts, and 
rush them into shelter on the first warning. You will 
then secure a continuous successson of these flowers 
from July or August until the snows of Christmas and 
even the dark days of the New Year. And in their 
innumerable colours and shapes and sizes there can 
never be dull satiety. Yet now is the season rather of 
continuations than of fresh surprises in the garden, of 
sequels rather than of fresh inception. Things go 
gently forward; there is a perceptible advance-— 
towards the grave; the year, as it were, rustles towards 
its end. The beds are still bright and full in places. 
The blue plumbago still decorates the borders, with 
the unfailing nasturtium. Salvia, too, shines reful¬ 
gent in her spikes of red and blue—the bluest blue 
that ever was on land or sea. Now is the season, too, 
of rejuvenescence on the part of some flowers which 
have slept awhile and awakened to suppose it spring. 
Second crops and second growths are invariable at this 
season. Strawberries bloom once again, and have even 
fruited in some instances; the sturdy lupin still puts 
forth his lances of blue and white; while the del¬ 
phinium, cut down long since, bourgeons again and 
throws up delicate spires of varying colours. Ripe 
