Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

Piptanthus nepalensis on a warm wall is admirable, but rare ; I have only seen it once. 46 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN Schizophragma hydrangeoides is a good wall-plant. For those who can get it to do on a half-shaded wall, is there any greater joy to the south country gardener than the Tropceolum speciosum ? There is an illustration of it in the 'English Flower Garden' (Flame Nasturtium), where it is depicted growing up strings. I think, however, it looks better if grown over some light creeper, Jasmine especially. It wants peat and moisture, and, above all, it must be in a place the spade or fork never reaches, as its thin little creeping white roots are easily disturbed, and even mistaken for a weed and thrown away. March %2nd. — Such a lovely spring day, in spite of its cold wind ; it makes me long to be sixteen miles away in my little garden. Even here in London great pure white stately clouds are sailing over the blue. How lucky I am to be going away so soon ! I wish it gave half as much pleasure to the rest of the family as it does to me ; but one of the few advantages of old age is that we may be innocently selfish. A day like this makes me think of a little poem that appeared in the Spectator twenty years ago. It was written by a young clergyman's wife, who worked hard amidst the sordid blackness of a manufactur- ing town on the banks of the Tyne. My young friends will say, ' How morbid are Aunt T.'s quotations ! ' It is perhaps true ; but all bright, lovable, sympathetic souls had a touch of morbidness in the days that are gone, and these ' Notes ' have no meaning at all unless I try to give out in them the impressions received during forty years. THE POET IN THE CITY The poet stood in the sombre town, And spoke to his heart and said : ' 0 weary prison, devised by man ! 0 seasonless place and dead ! ' His heart was sad, for afar he heard The sound of the spring's light tread. MARCH 47 He thought he saw in the pearly East The pale March sun arise ; The happy housewife beneath the thatch, With hand above her eyes, Look out to the cawing rooks, that built So near to the quiet skies. Out of the smoke and noise and sin The heart of the poet cried : ' O God ! but to be Thy labourer there, On the gentle hill's green side — To leave the struggle of want and wealth, And the battle of lust and pride ! ' He bent his ear, and he heard afar The growing of tender things, And his heart broke forth with the travailing earth And shook with tremulous wings Of sweet brown birds that had never known The dirge of the city's sins. And later, when all the earth was green As the garden of the Lord — Primroses opening their innocent faces, Cowslips scattered abroad, Blue-bells mimicking summer skies, And the song of the thrush out-poured — The changeless days were so sad to him That the poet's heart beat strong, And he struggled as some poor caged lark, And he cried, ' How long — how long ? I have missed a spring I can never see, And the singing of birds is gone.' But when the time of the roses came And the nightingale hushed her lay, The poet, still in the dusty town, Went quietly on his way — A poorer poet by just one spring, And a richer man by one suffering. I must begin to tell you about my old garden books, and how I first came to know about them, and then to