In the Garden It is a growing habit among owners
of the larger country houses to throw the gardens open to the public at a small charge collected for the hospitals. In one of these an extensive rock-garden had lately been built and planted. Though it was elaborate, the plants that were most admired were certainly the least rare. The best was a golden ribes or two. The golden varieties of a great many shrubs are rather less vigorous than the green, and these ribes can be persuaded into a dwarf spreading habit, and the flowers and leaves together are ideally bright among the rocks. The §econd plant, grown better than I have seen, was merely the red lungwort, common in cottage gardens. The flowers are so early and so profuse that it is well worth growing in all its three colours—red, blue and white. The pool of water in this particular rock- garden would, I thought, have been made more beautiful by a golden willow, and this golden plant—vitellina
perhaps, rather more vigorous than the . common Babylonian willow. Both the catkins and leaves are yellow in March.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
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