My own space being limited, I chose three of the above groups only, leaving out, as of colouring less pleasing to my personal liking, groups 3, 4, and 5. The remaining ones gave me examples of colouring the most widely different, and at the same time the most agreeable to my individual taste. It would have been easier, if that had been the object, to have made groups of the three other classes of colouring, which comprise by far the largest number of the splendid varieties now grown. There are a great many beautiful whites; of these, two that I most admire are Madame Carvalho and Sappho; the latter is an immense flower, with a conspicuous purple blotch. There is also a grand old kind called Minnie, a very large-growing one, with fine white trusses; and a dwarf-growing white that comes early into bloom is Cunningham's White, also useful for forcing, as it is a small plant, and a free bloomer.
Nothing is more perplexing than to judge of the relative merits of colours in a Rhododendron nursery, where they are all mixed up. I have twice been specially to look for varieties of a true pink colour, but the quantity of untrue pinks is so great that anything approaching a clear pink looks much better than it is. In this way I chose Kate Waterer and Sylph, both splendid varieties; but when I grew them with my true pink Bianchi they would not do, the colour having the suspicion of rank quality that I wished to keep out of that group. This same Bianchi, with its mongrel-sounding name, I found was not grown in the larger nurseries. I had it from Messrs. Maurice Young, of the Milford Nurseries, near Godalming. I regretted to hear lately from some one to whom I recommended it that it could not be supplied. It is to be hoped that so good a thing has not been lost.
A little way from the main Rhododendron clumps, and among bushy Andromedas, I have the splendid hybrid of R. Aucklandi, raised by Mr. A. Waterer. The trusses are astoundingly large, and the individual blooms large and delicately beautiful, like small richly-modelled lilies of a tender, warm, white colour. It is quite hardy south of London, and unquestionably desirable. Its only fault is leggy growth; one year's growth measures twenty-three inches, but this only means that it should be planted among other bushes.
Rhododendrons at the Edge of the Copse.
The last days of May see hardy Azaleas in beauty. Any of them may be planted in company, for all their colours harmonise. In this garden, where care is taken to group plants well for colour, the whites are planted at the lower and more shady end of the group; next come the pale yellows and pale pinks, and these are followed at a little distance by kinds whose flowers are of orange, copper, flame, and scarlet-crimson colourings; this strong-coloured group again softening off at the upper end by strong yellows, and dying away into the woodland by bushes of the common yellow Azalea pontica, and its variety with flowers of larger size and deeper colour. The plantation is long in shape, straggling over a space of about half an acre, the largest and strongest-coloured group being in an open clearing about midway in the length. The ground between them is covered with a natural growth of the wild Ling (Calluna) and Whortleberry, and the small, white-flowered Bed-straw, with the fine-bladed Sheep's-fescue grass, the kind most abundant in heathland. The surrounding ground is copse, of a wild, forest-like character, of birch and small oak. A wood-path of wild heath cut short winds through the planted group, which also comprises some of the beautiful white-flowered Californian Azalea occidentalis, and bushes of some of the North American Vacciniums.
Azaleas should never be planted among or even within sight of Rhododendrons. Though both enjoy a moist peat soil, and have a near botanical relationship, they are incongruous in appearance, and impossible to group together for colour. This must be understood to apply to the two classes of plants of the hardy kinds, as commonly grown in gardens. There are tender kinds of the East Indian families that are quite harmonious, but those now in question are the ordinary varieties of so-called Ghent Azaleas, and the hardy hybrid Rhododendrons. In the case of small gardens, where there is only room for one bed or clump of peat plants, it would be better to have a group of either one or the other of these plants, rather than spoil the effect by the inharmonious mixture of both.
I always think it desirable to group together flowers that bloom at the same time. It is impossible, and even undesirable, to have a garden in blossom all over, and groups of flower-beauty are all the more enjoyable for being more or less isolated by stretches of intervening greenery. As one lovely group for May I recommend Moutan Pæony and Clematis montana, the Clematis on a wall low enough to let its wreaths of bloom show near the Pæony. The old Guelder Rose or Snowball-tree is beautiful anywhere, but I think it best of all on the cold side of a wall. Of course it is perfectly hardy, and a bush of strong, sturdy growth, and has no need of the wall either for support or for shelter; but I am for clothing the garden walls with all the prettiest things they can wear, and no shrub I know makes a better show. Moreover, as there is necessarily less wood in a flat wall tree than in a round bush, and as the front shoots must be pruned close back, it follows that much more strength is thrown into the remaining wood, and the blooms are much larger.
I have a north wall eleven feet high, with a Guelder Rose on each side of a doorway, and a Clematis montana that is trained on the top of the whole. The two flower at the same time, their growths mingling in friendly fashion, while their unlikeness of habit makes the companionship all the more interesting. The Guelder Rose is a stiff-wooded thing, the character of its main stems being a kind of stark uprightness, though the great white balls hang out with a certain freedom from the newly-grown shoots. The Clematis meets it with an exactly opposite way of growth, swinging down its great swags of many-flowered garland masses into the head of its companion, with here and there a single flowering streamer making a tiny wreath on its own account.
On the southern sides of the same gateway are two large bushes of the Mexican Orange-flower (Choisya ternata), loaded with its orange-like bloom. Buttresses flank the doorway on this side, dying away into the general thickness of the wall above the arch by a kind of roofing of broad flat stones that lay back at an easy pitch. In mossy hollows at their joints and angles, some tufts of Thrift and of little Rock Pinks have found a home, and show as tenderly-coloured tufts of rather dull pink bloom. Above all is the same white Clematis, some of its abundant growth having been trained over the south side, so that this one plant plays a somewhat important part in two garden-scenes.