Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

It is, I think, very interesting to the gardener, where- ever he goes, to see how the common everyday things flourish more in one place than another. The Highlands seem to be the home of the Gooseberry — such old and hoary bushes, more or less covered by grey Lichens, but laden none the less with little hairy Gooseberries, both red and green, and full of flavour. There, too, the beautiful Tropczolum speciosum, South American stranger as it is, flames and flourishes and luxuriates everywhere, growing too, as it will not do in the South, in full sun- shine. The seed is so lovely in Scotland, almost as AUGUST 153 beautiful as the flower itself— three dark steel-blue seeds set in the dying flower, which turns a rich brown. Was ever anything more daintily beautiful to be seen ? It can be grown up strings, as in the picture in the ' English Flower Garden ' ; but I do not think that is as pretty as rambling with its delicate growth over some light creeper, such as Jasmine or Eose, as I recommended before. I did not see in the Highlands, rather to my surprise, though I believe it is planted in some places, the beautiful crimson -berried Elder, Sambucus racemosa. This was the one remarkable plant-feature I saw in Norway last year. I was there too late to see the wild flowers. It had not been imported very long, they told us, and it adorned all the stations (there is only one short railway in Norway), throwing out long branches covered with bunches of crimson berries, which are shaped like the black bunches on the Privet rather than like the flat berries of the common Elder. At a distance the plant looks, when covered with ripe berries, like a beautiful Crimson Rambler. It is singularly effective, and I have never seen it in England. I imagine this must be because, if it grew and berried ever so well in damp places, the birds would soon clear off all the fruit. In Norway there seem to be no small birds, for there the berries hung for weeks and weeks, in crimson loveliness. The shrub is about the height of Lilac bushes ; the berries grow on the old wood, and the growth of the year is a most brilliant green. It is a plant that more people should try to grow in damp situations. We were far North, up in Sutherlandshire, where the great storm of two years ago laid bare miles and miles of forest. I never saw a more curious sight — pathetic and sad too, in a way. The poor trees, which had from their youth up been accustomed to storms from the south and west, had sent out long roots, and buried them deep under 154 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN rocks and stones, which gave them firm hold to resist the blast. But on this November morning two years ago the snow was on the tree-tops, which made them heavy, and the furious gale swept on them from the north, and down they fell in thousands — whole hillsides laid bare, without one tree left standing, all torn up by the roots. It will be many years before the countryside is cleared of its own fallen timber.