About Orchids A Chat

e. In those early days I would have none of your geraniums, hardy perennials, and such common things. Diligently studying the "growers'" catalogues, I looked out, not novelties alone, bu

genera and species which, if all went well, should flower in succession. But there was a woeful gap about midsummer-just the time when gardens ought to be brightest. Still, I resolved

ning. I buy them fresh every autumn-but of Messrs. Protheroe and Morris, in Cheapside; not at the dealers'. Thus they are comparatively inexpensive. After planting my tulips, narcissus, and such tall things, however, I clothe the beds with forget-me-not or Silene pendula, or both, which keep them green through the winter and form a dense carpet in spring. Through it the bulbs push, and both flower at the same time

n England for the time necessary. Meanwhile I constructed two big tanks of wood lined with sheet-zinc, and a small one to stand on legs. The experts were much amused. Neither fish nor plant, they said, could live in a zinc vessel. They proved to be right in the former case, but utterly wrong in the latter-which, you will observe, is their special domain. I grew all manner of hardy nymph?a and aquatics for years, until my big tanks sprung a leak. Having learned by that time the ABC, at least, of terra-firma gardening, I did not trouble to have them mended. On the contrary, making more holes, I filled the cent

of scent, would have stood as thick as blades of grass upon it-such a lovely sight as was beheld in the garden of the late Mr. Harrison, at Shortlands. But being raised two feet or so, with a current of air beneath, its contents are frozen to a solid block, soil and all, again and again, each win

ghbours. Enough perhaps, but certainly no more, remain to serve me-that I know because the slugs give very little trouble in spite of the most favourable circumstances. You can always find frogs in my garden by looking for them, but of the thousands hatched every year, ninety-nine per cent. must vanish. Do blackbirds and thrushes eat young frogs? They are strangely abundant with me. But those who cultivate tadpoles must look over the breeding-pond from time to time. My whole batch was devoured one year by "devils"-the larv? of Dytiscus marginalis, the Plunger beetle. I have benefited, or at least have puzzled my neighbours also by introducing to them another sort of frog. Three years ago I bought twenty-five Hyl?, the pretty green tree species, to dwel

hat all these creatures are nocturnal of habit. Very few men visit their orchid-houses at night, as I do constantly. They would see the frogs active enough then, creeping with wondrous dexterity among the leaves, and springing like a green flash upon their prey. Naturally, therefore, they do not catch

in horticulture, should drift into that branch as years advance. Modesty would be out of place here. I have had successes, an