Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

In this way every bulb flowers. A little liquid manure helps them to open well when they are in bud the following June. The small offsets are put into a nursery apart, and many of them will flower JULY 13I the following year in a way that does admirably for picking. A few years ago I brought from Paris some bulbs of Ornithogalum pyramidale, the flower-spikes of which are sold at the end of June in the Paris flower market under the name of L'6p6e de la Vierge. I have never seen the plant grown anywhere in England as I have grown it, and yet in every way it is quite one of the most satis- factory flowers for picking that I know. If you gather it just as one flower is coming out, the whole of the long spike grows and flowers in water up to the very top, bending and curling about, and assuming the most graceful curves. No one can grow a better flower plant to send to London. It has one fault in the garden — the leaves droop and turn rather spotty and yellow before the flower comes quite to its prime ; but this defect can indeed be forgiven for the sake of its many merits. I cultivate it nearly as I do the above-mentioned Lilies ; only, when the bulbs are dug up, we place the small ones at once in a nursery, but the large ones are well dried in the sun and not replanted till October. A mulching when they begin to show through in the spring does them good. Mr. Barr sells the bulbs, but I cannot say if his are as fine as those I brought from Paris six or seven years ago. I know no summer-flowering shrub so beauti- ful as the Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora. I have tried over and over again to grow it, but it does badly and then dies. It is not the soil only, for I once saw a magnificent specimen growing under a wall at Ascot, where the soil is the same as ours. I suppose it never has had quite a good enough place. It should be cut back hard every spring, and, when growing freely, wants much watering ; I am told that constant applications of soot-water do it good. I daresay I shall succeed in time. K2 1 32 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN July Wth. — This is about the time we move our things from the reserve garden, spoken of before, and from the late-sown seed beds, and plant into the borders and square beds those amiable autumn annuals that do not seem to mind moving at all, such as French Mari- golds, Tagetes, Everlastings, Scabious, &c. The Phloxes, Michaelmas Daisies, and early low-growing Chrysanthe- mums, grown in the reserve garden, move just as well in warm, dry weather as in wet, only, of course, they must be well and continuously watered till the weather changes and they have taken hold. The large Sedum spectabile, so loved by the bees in September, also moves perfectly in the same way, and, in a large mass, makes a very handsome autumn plant. I am sure that the system of reserve garden and moving plants and seed- lings in July can be extended and experimented upon to almost any extent. Next year I must try it with the Veronica spicata — white, blue, and pink. They are very pretty things when flowering well and healthily, and they come into bloom at a time of year when herbaceous plants are scarce. Campanula turbinata, blue and white, are useful for the same reason.