Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

To those who have room I recommend the Venetian Sumach (Rhus cotinus), but it is not worth growing if it is crowded up. The most perfect way to grow it is to put the young plant in a well and richly made hole in the lawn, or at the edge of a shrubbery, the formality of which you wish to break. As it grows, cut away the turf from under it, and mulch it every winter ; this makes it grow quickly. When it gets into a good big plant, leave off mulching, and dress it with chalk, which will make it flower and bear its lovely feathery seeds in July. In a good sunny situation it will turn a flaming red colour, which is the reason for its English name of the ' Burning Bush.' It does better in moderately damp soils than with us, but a little care will make it grow anywhere. It is well adapted for picking and putting into water, as the leaves have a faint aromatic smell ; but it is not suited to very small gardens, for it spreads and takes up too much room. Crowding spoils its great characteristic of rooting into the ground all round. The finer sorts of Clematis (see ' English Flower Garden ') only do fairly well in our soil ; and till I gave JUNE 119 them plenty of chalk they often died. All the large Jackmani tribe (see nurserymen's catalogues) want cutting back to the ground very early in the year, before they begin to break in the spring ; but they are worth all care and trouble. Many gardeners do not agree with me, but I am very fond of specimen plants grown in holes cut in grass, if they are planted with care, to group with shrubs behind them, and so as not to present a dotted-about appearance. In large gardens there are places enough — in shrubberies, by the side of water, or elsewhere — where these single specimens can grow healthily. In really small gardens they take too much room. In medium-sized gardens they become a feature and an interest. Several plants, besides the Venetian Sumach before mentioned, are such fine growers that they are well worth an individual place to show them off:- Polygonum cuspidatum and P. sacchalinense are very effective, and grow splendidly in dry soils if the out- side suckers are pulled out every spring ; they want no other care. Bocconia cor da ta (Plume Poppy), a Japanese plant, also wants no other treatment ; and in this way the old shoots grow up finer and stronger each year. They are herbaceous, like the Polygonums, and it is best not to cut down their hollow stems till the spring. Leycesteria formosa has a good growth ; its uncommon brown flowers come late in the summer. (Kerria japonica, especially the single one mentioned before ; the Privets, the golden one and the Alexandrian are the best.) Tamarisks, so seldom grown away from the sea, which are very pretty, especially the one with tiny pink flowers that come out in the spring (T. parviflora, I believe it is called) ; and many hardy Bamboos can all be grown separately as specimen plants; as also the two Eulalias, japonica and zebrina, the tall Japanese grasses. The Arundo donax is the 120 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN lovely tall cane that grows in the ditches in Italy. But beware how you move it, if once you get it to grow ; it does not at all like being disturbed. Acanthus in full sun is very handsome, and grows large in rather a moist place ; so does the Giant Parsnip, but it is only a biennial.