Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

Old Man or Southernwood (Artemisia abrotanum) ought never to be forgotten. It grows easily from cuttings stuck into the ground in any of the early summer months. I am told that it is an especial favourite with the London poor. Perhaps its strong smell brings back any chance association with the country and the cottage garden. It reminds one of the old story of the poor Irishman, when the Lady Bountiful of the place had transformed his cabin into the graceful neatness of an English cottage. He gazed half -indignantly and half-gratefully on the change. ' It is all very kind,' said he, ' but the good lady does not know how dear to a poor man is everything that reminds him of the time when he played, instead of working. These great folks do not understand us.' But, after all, are we not all like that ? Does not sweet Nature herself throw a veil over the storms of middle-life and soften memories, which become sharp, vivid, and clear only concerning our young days and the time when ' we played,' full of buoyant hope for all that lay before us ? I have always wished for a sundial in the middle of my grass walks where they widen into a circle. Even in an unpretending modern garden I do not think a sun- dial is affected — or, at any rate, not very — and I long to write round the top of it my favourite among the old Italian mottoes : — ' I only mark the bright hours.' To the left of my long borders are four large, most useful, square beds, divided by narrow green paths. These are planted and sown, and renewed three or four times a year ; and I always wonder how anyone gets on without such kinds of beds. The Love-in-the-Mist and Gypsophila gracilis are sown broadcast here together twice a year, MAY 95 in March and in September. I always save my own seed of Love-in-the-Mist ; but in doing that, you must be careful to mark the best, largest, and bluest flowers. Then what you keep is far better than what you can buy ; but, unless you take this trouble, seeds grown in one place degenerate. To the right of the long borders are two large Rose beds with Eoses — old-fashioned rather than very large ones. The Hybrid Perpetuals do so badly in the light soil ; but here are G-loria Mundi, Cottage-maid, the dear little pink Rose de Meaux, the large white Cabbage, and so on. Beyond the Eose beds is a covered walk, made with stems of small fir-trees bound together with wire — an attempt at a pergola, but riot by any means as solid as I should like. On this grow vines, hardy climbing Eoses, Honeysuckles, and a dark claret-coloured Vine (which looks well), Aristolochia, Clematis (various), and, to make a little brightness in spring, two Kerrias. The single one, which is the original Japanese plant, is very uncommon, and yet so pretty — much better for wedging than the double kind, the old Jews-mallow of cottage gardens.