Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

The longest side of the house faces west. How I love it because of this ! To my mind, every country house is dull that does not face west, and have its principal view that way. Modern civilisation forbids us to enjoy the sunrise, but the varied effects of the sunset sky glorify everything — the most commonplace gable or the ugliest chimney-stack, a Scotch fir or an open field, which assumes a green under an evening primrose sky that it never has at any other time. The sky is like the sea for its ever-changefulness. You may watch sunsets most carefully every day in the year, and never will you see twice exactly the same effect. How we all know, and notice after midsummer, that marching south of the sun at setting-time ! The old fellow in June sets right away to the north, over the Common, changing groups of trees and a little distant hill to purple and blue. At the autumn equinox he looks straight in at the windows as he goes down between the stems of the two tall fir-trees. Who, when forced to come in to dinner on a summer's evening, does not appreciate a west dining-room with tall panes of glass which give the power to measure the gradations of the sky, from the deep grey-blue of night's garments at the top, to the bright gold, streaked with purple and crimson, at the base — the earth growing mysteriously dark all the while, and the evening star shining brighter every minute ? Architects tell you, and men say, they prefer that a house should face south-east. I do not at all agree with them ; the effects of evening to me are too much to give up for any other advantage in the world, real or imaginary. It is far easier to make some other room into a breakfast-room, to catch the morning sun in winter, than to change your dining-room in the 92 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN summer for the sake of the sunsets. To the west, then, I have my fountain, level with the turf, and with only the ornament of some special plants. To the right of the fountain is a large bed of carnations, slightly raised and terraced with stones, to give good depth of rich soil, unrobbed of moisture from the strong-growing shrubs behind, that are especially necessary for protection from the north and east. I strongly advise that on first coming to a new place you should never cut down much till you have given all the consideration possible to that matter of protection. I cannot repeat too often that wind-swept gardens can never be really satisfactory to the gardener. On the left of the fountain, cut in the grass, are the two long borders, far the most difficult part of the garden to keep as I should wish them to be. They should be always gay and bright, the highest plants planted down the middle ; and even they should be unequal in height. All plants that grow forward into the grass must be kept for other beds edged with stone or gravel. Borders cut in grass must be luxuriant and not untidy, and filled principally with plants which in their non-flowering season are not unsightly. It is for such borders that the seed beds and the reserve garden are so indispensable. On the left of these borders are a few specimen plants cut in the grass : — A Polygonum cuspidatiim, which is a joy from the first starting of its marvellous quick spring growth to its flowering-time, and to the day when its yellow autumn leaves leave the bare red-