A Flower Show.

“We were given tickets for a flower show at the Royal Horticultural Society's Hall. These shows, which take place fortnightly, are great advertising for the exhibitors, and a grand opportunity for garden lovers to order just what they want.

“I was particularly impressed by a large oblong tulip bed near the entrance doors. The tulips, in massed colourings, were arranged so that they rose to a rounded cone in the middle, and to smaller ‘hillocks’ near the four corners. The effect was beautiful—far more interesting than that given by a flat flower surface.

“At this season, of course, ‘blossom’ made a wonderful show.

“I was surprised to learn from an attendant at a daffodil stand that Cornwall is a great bulb-growing district. Some of the most beautiful daffodils have typically Cornish names—St. Ives, Pencoys, Coverack, Treffry, Trevithian. Some of the flowers I took a fancy to were terribly expensive—up to £5 a bulb.

“What charmed me most was the rock-garden display. Though I had just looked at the most glorious orchids with their long and graceful page 60 sprays of blossom—sulphur green, rust, delicate pink, a gamut of shades—I preferred the tiny saxifrages against their background of grey rock. Next to the saxifrages I liked the primulas, beautiful in single tufts or massed according to colour. In these rock gardens, great use was made of dwarf trees and shrubs. The berberis which I had seen making a great show at Kew, was here represented by a neat golden-flowered bush, an ideal rock-garden accent. Unexpected also were the dwarf rhododendrons with massed blossoms of violet or of rosy-red. Dwarf cypresses, spruces and pines formed a dark and shapely contrast to the delicate flowered ‘carpet’ plants. I was delighted with a tiny, fairy edition of the Iceland Poppy, and with miniature daffodils and jonquils. And the gentian is as heavenly a blue as one can imagine.

“I'm writing to friends in Auckland to tell them to root out the grass turf which grows here and there in their rock-garden, and to plant instead an ‘alpine lawn,’ consisting of a close sward of Thymes and other carpeting plants. This ‘lawn’ is more interesting than grass, and never requires mowing.”