Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

October %7th. — I have been taking up to-day the Lobelia cardinalis and L. fulgens. Cardinalis is the one with the dark leaves and the handsomer grower; the other flowers rather the earlier. October %8th. — With all the weeks and weeks of wet we have had this year we have waited long for our ' St. Luke's Summer ' ; and now it has come at last, it is not with its usual still, lovely warm days. It has come fine and lovely, yes ; but hand-in-hand with Jack Frost, and the garden is cleared for the present of nearly every bloom that was left. A first foggy day ! How beautiful it is in the country, and what an endless pleasure when, at midday, the sun conquers the mist ! — reminding one of Milton's simile at the end of his description of his hero, Satan : — ... As when the sun, new risen, Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams. And how useful are days like these in the country ! There is no such time for noticing the shapes of the groups of shrubs and forms of plants, and what ought to be cut away and what left as it is. Some low-growing plants luxuriate so in the wet autumn days, they make us believe no winter is coming — such as the foliage of Pinks and Carnations, Sweet Williams, Golden Feverfew, and last, but not least, another of the treasure weeds of a garden, the common Marigold. Down the kitchen garden I have a patch of border given up to the Marigolds, and they OCTOBER 189 sow themselves over and over again, and flower at all sorts of unexpected times. As they proudly defy early frosts, they become really precious with their grand glow- ing orange faces. As is so often the case, the single ones, with their varieties of dark and light centres, are prettier than the double ones, though both may be grown to suit all tastes, the colour always being good. No garden, however small, should be without this patch devoted to Marigolds. I do not dislike their pungent smell, as many do. The wet has kept the leaves long green and fresh on the trees, but the cold of last night brought down at once the great succulent leaves of some young Horse Chestnuts not far from here. Just about this garden they will not grow, as they so dislike the sand. As I passed them to-day I noticed the leaves all lay in heaps, freshly fallen round the slight stems, on the green grass, fold on fold, in the low autumn sunshine. Very beautiful, like Keats's description in ' St. Agnes' Eve ' of fair Madeline unrobing :— Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees, Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one, Loosens her fragrant bodice ; by degrees Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees, Half hidden, like a mermaid in seaweed. So the trees stood up this afternoon, with all their summer clothing round their feet. I always long at this time of the year to have been to Japan to see one of their Chrysanthemum shows. I am told our individual flowers are far finer, but their method of arranging the shows is so superior to ours, and the effect produced is naturally much more lovely. They arrange them in bands and waves of colour, from the darkest red to the palest pink, fading into white ; and up again from pale lemon, yellow, and orange to the darkest 1 9o POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN