Lessons from Wisley
At Wisley, where the gardens grow more gorgeous and suggestive every year, there is to be seen just inside the gate a flowering patch that bears the absurd name Ceratostigma Plumbaginoides. It is not, I think, very widely grown ; and much less widely spread is C. Wilmottiana, whose blossoms are of the loveliest blue in the garden and, in my experience at any rate, no flower equals it in attracting the humming bird hawk moth. It is a better lure even than the buddleia. The bush may be cut down in a very hard winter, but, like the fuchsia, it comes up again strongly enough. One of today's lessons of Wisley is the ease with which gentians may be grown. Many gardeners shun them as too difficult or are content with sino-ornata, which is the most tolerant of limey soils, but there are numbers that do well enough. The latest number of the R. H. S. Journal (which is charmingly illustrated) recommends the dark blue G. Gracilipes from China which " does quite well under ordinary garden conditions." The small garden of a neighbour of mine is at present bright with several varieties that are very persuasive.
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