Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

may be carefully moved in the spring with a ball of earth. I find that the beds made up in early autumn do much the best, though one is loath to disturb Carnations which may go on occasionally throwing up a flower, or whose foliage, in any case, is so very beautiful half through the winter if the weather keeps mild. September 15th. — Everyone who lives at all in the neighbourhood of suburban residences must be struck with the extraordinary sameness of the shrubberies which surround these houses and gardens, especially those which are almost invariably planted along the approaches. First of all you generally find the road waving and twisting — to give, I suppose, an impression of greater length — edged by a foot or two of grass, ugly in itself and laborious to keep tidy. The shrubs are roughly clipped back, chiefly at the bottom, while as they grow upwards the top branches out of reach are left to overhang the road. This clipping, without any regard to the good of the shrub, whether evergreen or deciduous, all treated in exactly the same way, makes a hideous hard wall of green, more or less imperfect. A still uglier way, though more modern, is to keep the shrubs apart by cutting them back in round, pudding- shaped nobs. This method has not one redeeming quality, to my mind. When you arrive in front of the house, the road terminates in a most unmanageable and impracticable circle, surrounding a green plot of grass with more or less the same clipped shrubs all round. This plot of grass is sometimes broken up with standard Rose-trees, or small beds with Geraniums, or basket beds, all very inappropriate, adding much to the gardener's labour, but not contributing in any way to any beauty of form or colour. Instead of this drive round a grass plot or the circular bed of shrubs, I think most people would find their approach more simple and SEPTEMBER 167 dignified if that road were straightened where it is possible, and ended in a large square or oblong of gravel at right angles to the house, sufficiently roomy for carriages to turn with ease. The sides could then be planted with borders or shrubberies, or merely turfed, according to the taste of the owner and the space at his command. Where the soil is light, and the drive up long enough, it is well to plant it with the wild growth of the neighbouring common — Box, Holly, Broom, Ling, Honey- suckle, Blackberries. These will never grow into a wall, and require very little weeding and attention. Now a word about the original planting. When you take a new house, it generally happens that the first wish is to gain privacy by planting out a neighbour or a road. In light soils the common Ehododendron grows nearly as quickly, if planted in peat, as the Laurel or the Portugal Laurel. It is decidedly prettier, and does not suffer in the same way in severe winters from frost. I believe that some people prefer Laurels to other shrubs ; but it must be remembered that Laurels make root- growth like trees, take all moisture out of the soil, and starve other shrubs near them. Ehododendrons, on the other hand, grow very much on the surface, are easily transplanted at any time during the summer, and can be increased by layering.