Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

One of the most beautiful of late summer plants — I see my friends often fail with it — is the Lobelia cardinalis and L. fulgens, Queen Victoria. It is generally injured by kindness, sown in the early spring, drawn up in green- houses, and planted out weak and straggling, when it does nothing. It is a North American bog-plant, where it lies frost-bound for months, so it is not cold that kills it ; but it likes a long rest. I generally take up my old plants and keep them very dry in a box in a frame, planting them out at the end of March or early in April, before they begin to grow at all. It is letting them grow on in the boxes that brings the disease and rust. Every year we sow a small patch of both kinds out of doors in June or July, and these young plants survive the winter perfectly. Dear youth ! What a power it is to those that have it, even among plants ! In spring these plants are put where they are wanted to flower. If they are in a dry place, I am bound to say they require plenty of water when once they really begin to grow. They look very well in autumn growing out of a fine spreading base of Mrs. Sinkins JULY I43 Pink, which must be divided in the autumn, leaving spaces for the planting of the Lobelia in spring. This is the time when the plants before named, which were put into the reserve garden in the spring — early Chrysanthemums, Phloxes, Michaelmas Daisies — are brought to fill up bare places in the border. If the borders have been planted as before advised, the colours must be arranged according to the several groups. Two plants of the Daisy tribe — one blue-violet with a yellow middle, called Erigeron speciosus ; the other a bright yellow, though some are paler than others, called Anthemis tinctoria — are invaluable in dry borders. They grow easily from seed, and are very amiable about being moved. July %lth. — Watering outdoor plants not in pots or tubs is a question about which people differ much. Gardeners as a rule are against it, and it certainly kills perennial plants and small shrubs if begun and left off, or even if improperly done. But in a dry soil many a plant is saved by watering it thoroughly once or twice a week, more especially if the flower-buds are formed. My experience is that under those circumstances watering hurts nothing, but it has a tendency to draw the roots to the surface, which is very undesirable with perennials, both for heat in summer and cold in winter. With any precious plant newly planted, and which looks thirsty, a very good and safe plan is to sink a flower-pot in the ground, just above the plant if the ground slopes at all. Fill this with water, and let it soak gradually away, to the cooling and refreshing of the roots. After the plant has been well soaked, one filling of the pot a day, in the morning, is sufficient. All plants that have been planted out, after being removed from a reserve garden or seed bed, must be watered ; and once you begin, whether in kitchen or flower garden, you must go on till it rains steadily and well ; a slight shower is no good. 144 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN