Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

brown branches standing alone after the first frosts of October ; a Siberian Crab, beautiful with blossom in spring and with fruit in autumn; also that lovely autumn-flowering shrub Des- modium penduliflorum, which has to be cut down every year, and which is never seen to advantage in a border because of its feathery and spreading growth. Behind these again, and facing due north and shaded from the MAY 93 south, is a large bed of the old Moss-Eose, which in this position does exceedingly well. The large branches are partly pegged down, .and they are not pruned back very hard. Behind the fountain, away from the house, are bamboos, Japanese grasses, and low-growing, shrubby Spiraeas ; the smallest gardens should not be without some of these, more especially S. thunbergi, so precious for its miniature early flowers and its lovely decorative foliage, and very useful for picking and sending away. Clethra (Sweet Pepper Bush) is also a useful little shrub, as it flowers in July, when watering helps it to bloom well. But I have only to refer you again and again to the ' English Flower Garden.' If you study this, you will never lack variety or plenty, whatever your soil, or your situation, or your aspect — no, nor even your nearness to that deadly enemy of plant life, a smoky town. A lovely spring-flowering shrub is Exochorda grandi- flora. I can most conscientiously say, ' Get it.' It is per- fectly hardy ; the flowers, full-blown and in bud, are of an exquisitely pure white, and the foliage is light-green, delicate, and refined. One of the most precious of May flowers, and one not nearly enough grown, is the early Dutch Honeysuckle. It is nearly white, though it dies off yellow. I have named it in the lists, but it deserves, if only for picking, a place in every garden. Being an early bloomer, it re- quires a warm place, and would do admirably against the low wall of any greenhouse. Those precious frontages to greenhouses, in large places and in what I call ' gardeners' gardens,' are so often left unused, neat, empty, and bare. On these wasted places many lovely things would grow, and none better than this beautiful Dutch Honeysuckle, with its double circles of blooms, its excellent travelling qualities, and its powerful sweet scent, unsurpassed by anything, It is, I suppose, like many things, better for 94 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN good feeding. It wants nothing but cutting back hard as soon as it has made its summer growth, after flowering, to keep it well in its place. It flowers profusely year after year, and it is easily increased by summer layering.