In the Garden What is there to interest in the
garden in mid-winter? A few flowering shrubs, such as viburnum fragrans, chimonan- thus and witch hazel; a few humble flowers, such as the lungwort, beloved of, cottage gardeners, and primulas; but even those who specialise in winter flowers get their general effects chiefly from grey-green leaves, from variegated thyme, or the senecios, say, rotundifolia (the best at this season), or greyii, or even maritima, from carnations and rock roses. This year, when the frosts and snows have reduced the clumps of iris leaves to a state of wan pallor, the iris-like leaves of the sisyrinchium look greener and fresher than ever. Is there any plant better for clothing a bank in winter?. Its astonishing vitality was witnessed this year by an outbreak of small leaves on the dead flower-stems, making a botanical marvel. Doubt- less the plant seeds rather too freely for complete convenience, but few seedlings, or, indeed, fay grown plants, are easier of eradication. The flowers are pleasant, though not remark- able, and the flowering period is long. These are minor virtues. The cardinal virtue is its gift for covering earth with pleasant greenery in winter. The greatest of our modem landscape gardeners, who was very fond of his Sussex garden in winter, used to express his wrath against those gardeners who of set purpose rob the garden of its natural colours, and thereby also harm the plants. He insisted on the stems being left to show their browns and greys. The excessive tidying up of herbaceous borders does a good deal of harm, and certainly robs the bed of a decent and, it may be, pleasantly colourful colouring. But how gardeners enjoy wholesale
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