PEONY AND CARNATION.
The flowers that flame in English gardens in June are now so many and glorious that selection is an almost painful process for gardeners, small or big: Varieties increase by the hundred yearly. Who shall decide on the best ? Yet some of these are so salient as to insist on recognition, almost as soon as they appear. One of this company is the single- flowered -peony, Whittleyi Major. The white flowers are so large and yellow-central that you might mistake them for specimens of a new species of plant. There is no obvious likeness at all to the glorious, robust, almost vulgar double peony. that all of us grow and enjoy. But this variety will flower very freely and is not on the whole tender, as are some of the singles, with a tendency to vanish away softly and silently. It has recently been exhibited in exceptional splendour by one of the Wisbech growers. A rock plant that is worth cultivation in small gardens is the dwarf and half-single red carnation, - Dianthus Roysii. It is bigger in the flower than most dwarfs and is not difficult to grow.
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