Lilac Marie Legraye. (See page [23].)
Flowering Elder and Path from Garden to Copse.
About the middle of the month the Virginian Cowslip (Mertensia virginica) begins to turn yellow before dying down. Now is the time to look out for the seeds. A few ripen on the plant, but most of them fall while green, and then ripen in a few days while lying on the ground. I shake the seeds carefully out, and leave them lying round the parent-plant; a week later, when they will be ripe, they are lightly scratched into the ground. Some young plants of last year's growth I mark with a bit of stick, in case of wanting some later to plant elsewhere, or to send away; the plant dies away completely, leaving no trace above ground, so that if not marked it would be difficult to find what is wanted.
This is also the time for pulling to pieces and replanting that good spring plant, the large variety of Myosotis dissitiflora; I always make sure of divisions, as seed does not come true. Primula rosea should also be divided now, and planted to grow on in a cool place, such as the foot of a north or east wall, or be put at once in its place in some cool, rather moist spot in the rock-garden. Two-year-old plants come up with thick clumps of matted root that is now useless. I cut off the whole mass of old root about an inch below the crown, when it can easily be divided into nice little bits for replanting. Many other spring-flowering plants may with advantage be divided now, such as Aubrietia, Arabis, Auricula, Tiarella, and Saxifrage.
The young Primrose plants, sown in March, have been planted out in their special garden, and are looking well after some genial rain.
The great branching Mullein, Verbascum olympicum, is just going out of bloom, after making a brilliant display for a fortnight. It is followed by the other of the most useful tall, yellow-flowered kinds, V. phlomoides. Both are seen at their best either quite early in the morning, or in the evening, or in half-shade, as, like all their kind, they do not expand their bloom in bright sunshine. Both are excellent plants on poor soils. V. olympicum, though classed as a biennial, does not come to flowering strength till it is three or four years old; but meanwhile the foliage is so handsome that even if there were no flower it would be a worthy garden plant. It does well in any waste spaces of poor soil, where, by having plants of all ages, there will be some to flower every year. The Mullein moth is sure to find them out, and it behoves the careful gardener to look for and destroy the caterpillars, or he may some day find, instead of his stately Mulleins, tall stems only clothed with unsightly grey rags. The caterpillars are easily caught when quite small or when rather large; but midway in their growth, when three-quarters of an inch long, they are wary, and at the approach of the avenging gardener they will give a sudden wriggling jump, and roll down into the lower depths of the large foliage, where they are difficult to find. But by going round the plants twice a day for about a week they can all be discovered.
The white variety of the French Willow (Epilobium angustifolium) is a pretty plant in the edges of the copse, good both in sun and shade, and flourishing in any poor soil. In better ground it grows too rank, running quickly at the root and invading all its neighbours, so that it should be planted with great caution; but when grown on poor ground it flowers at from two feet to four feet high, and its whole aspect is improved by the proportional amount of flower becoming much larger.
Towards the end of June the bracken that covers the greater part of the ground of the copse is in full beauty. No other manner of undergrowth gives to woodland in so great a degree the true forest-like character. This most ancient plant speaks of the old, untouched land of which large stretches still remain in the south of England—land too poor to have been worth cultivating, and that has therefore for centuries endured human contempt. In the early part of the present century, William Cobbett, in his delightful book, "Rural Rides," speaking of the heathy headlands and vast hollow of Hindhead, in Surrey, calls it "certainly the most villainous spot God ever made." This gives expression to his view, as farmer and political economist, of such places as were incapable of cultivation, and of the general feeling of the time about lonely roads in waste places, as the fields for the lawless labours of smuggler and highwayman. Now such tracts of natural wild beauty, clothed with stretches of Heath and Fern and Whortleberry, with beds of Sphagnum Moss, and little natural wild gardens of curious and beautiful sub-aquatic plants in the marshy hollows and undrained wastes, are treasured as such places deserve to be, especially when they still remain within fifty miles of a vast city. The height to which the bracken grows is a sure guide to the depth of soil. On the poorest, thinnest ground it only reaches a foot or two; but in hollow places where leaf-mould accumulates and surface soil has washed in and made a better depth, it grows from six feet to eight feet high, and when straggling up through bushes to get to the light a frond will sometimes measure as much as twelve feet. The old country people who have always lived on the same poor land say, "Where the farn grows tall anything will grow"; but that only means that there the ground is somewhat better and capable of cultivation, as its presence is a sure indication of a sandy soil. The timber-merchants are shy of buying oak trees felled from among it, the timber of trees grown on the wealden clay being so much better.