Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

for plants from the north-east wind. Shelter in all forms, without taking too much out of the soil, as trees and shrubs do, is the great secret of success in all kinds of gardening. I should spend my life in inventing shelters if I lived on the East Coast ; but I confess that tem- porary protections are not very pretty. Another good method of obtaining shelter is to use common hurdles of iron or wood, or flat laths with Gorse or Bracken twisted into them. When all your hand-lights are in use in Spring, a good deal of protection from frost may be given to the seed beds by sheets of newspaper held down by a stone or two ; muslin sewn over a zinc wire-coop will keep out six or seven degrees of frost. Dried Bracken spread over frames is even better for keeping out frost than matting, and is nearly as easily removed. May 11th. — Epimediums are charming little plants with lovely, graceful foliage, and are well worth growing if you have a moist and shady corner. E. pinnatum is perhaps the best, and has long clusters of small yellow flowers ; the leaves are very pretty, and mix well with any flowers. Aloysia citriodora (Sweet Verbena) is a plant that is a universal favourite. I have never known anyone, not even those who dislike strongly scented flowers, not be delighted with the delicious refreshing smell of its leaves, which they retain long after they are dried. Yet you go to house after house, and find no plants growing out of doors. Their cultivation is simple, and they require but little care to make them quite hardy; out of five or six plants which I have out of doors, only one died in the hard winter two years ago. If you have any small plants in your greenhouse (if not, buy them at sixpence apiece), put them out at the end of May, after harden- ing off, in a warm sunny place, either close to a wall or under the shelter of a wall. Water them, if the weather u2 ioo POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN is dry ; and do not pick them much the first year, as their roots correspond to the top growth. Out off the flowers as they appear. When injured by the frost, never cut the branches down till quite late in the following year. It is this cutting-back that causes the death of so many plants ; the larger stems are hollow, and the water in them either rots or freezes the roots. In November cover the roots of the Verbena with a heap of dry ashes ; this is all the care they require, and they will break up stronger and finer each year. I have kept plants in this way year after year, even in an open border. I believe they would grow in London gardens as long as they have plenty of sun ; and if the plant is weak when they begin to grow in the spring, it would be well to pick off some of the shoots. The cuttings strike quite easily all through the summer in sand in a greenhouse or under a bell-glass. May 14£/t. — I suppose it is the same with everything in life that one really cares about, and you must not, any of you, be surprised if you have moments in your gardening life of such profound depression and disappointment that you will almost wish you had been content to leave everything alone and have no garden at all. This is especially the case in a district affected by smoke or wind, or in a very light sandy soil. Five weeks without a drop of rain, and everything bursts into flower and as quickly goes off.