Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

Buddleia globosa is well worth growing, even in a small garden. It has many merits besides its golden balls, which so charmed Mr. Bright, and which here, at any rate, I think rather disappointing. The growth is lovely ; and the tone of the green unusual, mixing well with many summer flowers. It lasts a long time in water in the hottest weather. The more you cut it, the better it seems to do. It was killed to the ground in the cold winter of '94^95, but broke up from the roots as strong as ever. Some plants do this ; others never recover. The shrubby Veronicas never do break up from the roots here. My large Arbutus, killed the same winter, threw up a few shoots, but never did any good, and died the next year. I think the shrubby Veronicas so well worth growing that I have five cr six varieties; and as they are not quite hardy, I keep pots of cuttings every winter. This we do also with three or four nominally hardy Cistuses, though they are a little more difficult to strike. Helianthemums or Eock-roses are well worth growing from seed in a sunny dry situation. I know nothing more charming than these delicate, bright-flowered little plants blazing APRIL 85 and blinking in the sunshine. I have a double-flowered scarlet Eock-rose, not figured in any of my books, and which I have rarely seen in gardens. It flowers persist- ently for many months. April 17 'th. — We have had lately a severely cold week — Blackthorn winter indeed. How the poor garden shrivels and shrinks, and seems to lose all its colour ! Many years ago, in a volume of Tennyson given me by Owen Meredith, he wrote on the fly-leaf the following little poem, full of sympathy for the gardener : — In Nature can aught be unnatural ? If so, it is surely the frost, That cometh by night and spreadeth death's pall On the promise of summer which spring hath lost. In a clear spring night Such a frost pass'd light Over the budding earth, like a ghost. But the flowers that perish'd Were those alone Which, in haste to be cherish'd And loved and known, Had too soon to the sun all their beauty shown. Lightly vested, Amorous-breasted Blossom of almond, blossom of peach- Impatient children, with hearts unsteady, So young, and yet more precocious each Than the leaves of the summer, and blushing already These perished because too soon they lived ; But the oak-flower, self -restrained, survived ; ' If the sun would win me,' she thought, « he must Wait for me, wooing me warmly the while ; For a flower's a fool, if a flower would trust Her whole sweet being to one first smile.' 86 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN MAY Vegetable growing — Autumn annuals — Spring seeds— Description of my own garden— Weeding— Houses facing west— Flowering shrubs — May flowers — Sundials — Hoses and Creepers— History of the Tulip— Salads— Plant shelters— Sweet Verbena — Blue Anemones — Packing cut flowers — A few simple receipts — Plants in pots.