22 MARCH 1940, Page 17

Garden Survivors

Among the garden plants that have not been killed by the frosts are two which many people regard as at best tender. One is a passion flower that adorns a south-east wall ; the other is a bush of ceratostigma, which to my eyes bears the loveliest blue flower of any bush in the garden. Both the evergreen and deciduous ceanothus have survived intact. Indeed, Gloire de Versailles has not even yet lost its last year's leaves. One never knows. On the farms, for example, the two latest frosts have damaged the wheat more severely than all the six weeks of continuous frost.