The Flower Of Good Growing

The greatest clematis discovery of recent times is the form of C. orientalis which Ludlow and Sheriff brought back from Tibet. The four waxy petals which make up the flowers are as thick as orange peel. To begin with they are pale green, then they turn to yellow and finish real orange color. With me they start opening in late July and there are a few flowers in November. The foliage is sea-green and as delicate as a fern. I have one plant on a west wall and it frames the kitchen window, climbs up on the roof to smother the wireless aerial and works its way round the corner on to a north wall. When it is heavily laden with flowers in September it would completely curtain the window if we didn't deal with it firmly. The other one is on an east wall and the growth is even more luxuriant because after reaching the top of the wall it has to work forward and has smothered the bed below with tropical luxuriance. I planted the soft blue C. jouiniana praecox to cover the lower part of the wall and have great difficulty in keeping it from being swamped. And the finish of the flowers isn't the end of Clematis orientalis, for the balls of silky down which mingle with the flowers all through the season hang on until it is time to cut the clematis down in February. I asked Mr. Roland Jackman how I should treat this clematis and he told me I could cut it down to about z' in mid- February.

Compared with the luxuriance of the orange-peel clematis the other clematis that flower in July is very restrained. The pearly- flowered C. Huldine is best appreciated if one can look up at the flowers. C. albo-luxurians should be at eye level as the green- tipped white flowers have a delicate beauty, and C. kermesina, another viticella type, is a strong pink and associates well with Ceanotbus Autumnal Blue, with soft blue flowers.

I have always grown as many bergamot  as I could, from the tall mauve to the pinks and reds. The tall leafy stems stand erect and the foliage is aromatic even in mid-winter. M. Snow Maiden is a new one and an exceptional plant. White flowers are always needed in the garden, and when they are ruffled with green and make a fine upstanding clump about ay high they are particularly valuable. I have it growing with Solidago Lemore, which has greeny-yellow flowers and shows up best with white. The monarda blooms for several weeks and doesn't seem as insistent on moist soil as some of the others.

July is the month when regale lilies scent the air, and their delicious fragrance draws me many times a day to the places where they grow. I don't think it is possible to have too many regale lilies and I plant out every seedling I find. Seedlings appear all round the plants, sometimes in crevices between stones and in the path. The best regale lilies I have ever seen were growing in an enormous pot, so I put mine in raised beds, tubs and troughs which they have to share with fritillaries, snowdrops and dwarf daffodils. It is a good idea to plant any spare lilies in pots which can be sunk in flower beds needing interest in July.

There is growing interest in lilies, but those of us with very limy soil can grow only very few. It doesn't worry me because the lilies I love are white and scented and I am content with Lilium regale. L. eandidam grows but not as well as it should. I should like to succeed with L. longifolium but it doesn't fancy my soil, but I intend to give it and L. auratum the pot treatment. I should like to grow the greeny-yellow szovitsianum, but the tawny and red lilies, most of them unscented, I willingly leave to others. Martagon lilies in crimson and white naturalise themselves among shrubs, and the little yellow lily,pyrenaicum, seeds itself about. No one could call that sweetly scented, but when a plant grows because it wants to one isn't too critical. Even the experts have great difficulty making some of their lilies happy. In one famous garden small raised beds have been made by peat blocks among shrubs. These are filled with special compost and the lilies are carefully seated on sand—and even then they don't always do well.

There is growing enthusiasm for hostas (also belonging to the liliaceae family), but it doesn't reach anything like the thrall that lilies have for some people. I can understand the devotion to plantain lilies because they have wonderful leaves as well as lovely flowers, and the flowers are in gentle shades of lilac if they are not white. Also they are easy to grow if they get moisture and humus. Some experts say they will not grow in limy soil, but I do not think they can be too particular as I can grow them. I always put in plenty of peat when I plant them. Primarily they are plants for shade, but they will grow in sun and usually flower better in a sunny position, though the leaves are bigger in shade In sun they need more moisture. I have never decided which kinds I like best; variegated plants fascinate me, but for sheer beauty the great crinkled leaves of H. sieboldiana come first. They are blue-grey, with a delicate bloom and deeply veined. The flowers are pale lilac and if left on the plants the seed-heads look almost like silver flowers and last all through the winter.

I saw a lovely planting of this hosta in a friend's garden. A small rose garden had the climbing rose New Dawn trained on one side. It was to make a screen and all along the bottom these magnificent hostas were growing. The very pale pink of the roses was entrancingly lovely with the leaves of the hosta and its pale lilac flowers.

Hostas look lovely under old-fashioned roses and are good growing under trees, with perhaps the tall white Iris oehreleuea to give height.