7 MARCH 1947, Page 15

In My Garden A useful note on the loveliest of

all winter flowers has reached me. The darker variety of the Algerian iris is found, at any rate in Northern Ireland, to be a better "doer " than the paler forms, and to come into flower soon after planting. Since numbers of amateur gardeners lament that they cannot grow this iris, the point may be worth their -notice. The same gardener who has reached this con- clusion calls the camellia " the most beautiful flower I know." He regards the variety Salvensis as sufficiently hardy, and it flowers very freely in mid-winter. The species is rarely grown (like the lovely blue Ceratostigma Wihnottiana) because it is generally re- garded as much less hardy than in fact it is.•

W. BEACH THOMAS.