Sowing your own seeds takes too long, and is too uncertain without a hot-bed. Do not put off planting all the hardy plants too late. London is warmer than the country, and your great object ought to be to get things early. All Pinks, Saxifrages (especially London Pride), Ferns, and all the hardy perennials you like to try, ought to be planted in October, at the same time as the bulbs. The Campanulas named in June would do well in small London gardens; the shade of the walls and the moisture would suit them excellently. Perhaps they might want water, if the weather was very dry, to help them to flower.

There are often a few cold nights at the end of May, when the icebergs are floating South-those wonderful, beautiful ice-mountains, once to have seen, never to be forgotten; they have eight times their height below the water, and this keeps them straight as they float onwards, glittering in the sunshine. Beautiful as they are to those who see them, they are cruel destroyers of our poor uncertain spring weather. A very good plan on cold nights is to throw over your plants some newspapers, held down by stones; or if you cover up some wicker or wire hencoops with muslin, they will keep out five or six degrees of frost. These protections can be removed in the morning. All spring-watering should be done in the morning, not in the evening; and it is better to add a very little warm water than to use very cold water out of pipes. The handsomest, easiest-grown, hardiest, most useful plant for London gardens is the Polygonum cuspidatum (there is a lovely drawing of it, by Mr. Alfred Parsons, in Mr. Robinson's 'Wild Garden'); but its whole beauty and utility, as I have said before, depends on taking up the suckers as they appear in early spring. Without that, the plant is a useless weed; but treated as I recommend, I am sure no one can be disappointed with this strong-growing herbaceous plant. The larger-leaved kind, P. sacchali-nensis, is very good also, if you have room for both, but it has not quite such a beautiful up-standing and yet graceful growth.

I think the Bocconia cordata would also do in London gardens, as it is a very handsome herbaceous plant, and comes to perfection early, throwing up its feathery blooms in July. None of the Primrose family are any good in London; the leaves are too woolly.

Do not allow the beds to be dug over or pulled about in the autumn; it is a very bad plan. Consciously or unconsciously the man digs everything up, and I believe many a gardener thinks it is good for 'trade !

No Roses are worth trying in or near London, though a few are growing in Holland House Gardens that look fairly healthy; but that is a very large open space, and they are old-established bushes, which have been there a long time. I think that most beautiful shrub, Hydrangea paniculata, might do well; it is best cut down every March, and is such a beautiful thing. It likes a strong soil, but flowers rather late for those who leave London early.

Lilies of the Valley do very well in London if planted under a wall; facing east is the best position, and they should be left alone. Most of the hardy Lilies would thrive if planted in October, especially the scarlet Lily, Lilium chal-cedonicum, which flowers early. One reason why London gardens do so badly very often is that they are neglected in September and October. Wallflowers are best planted in September; and I am afraid many beginners fail to realise what are annuals and what are not, and the greater the difficulties the greater the care necessary. I saw once in a review of an American book on gardening that the late springs and the early heat in parts of x\merica made the growing of many of the larger annuals a great difficulty, as they could not be sown out of doors early enough. The reviewer quoted the author of the book's statement of how she ingeniously devised the following method:-Determined not to be beaten, she grew the single seeds in empty egg-shells stuck into boxes of sand; when the time came for planting, and the little seed had grown, the shell was just broken and the whole thing dropped into the ground where it was to grow. In this way she got Poppies, etc, to flourish-plants that will not bear moving at all, as a general rule. I mention this as an example of the whole spirit of gardening, a patient conquering of difficulties. Biding on the crest of the wave that tries to submerge us is one of the phases of our existence that makes life most satisfactory and worth living, and it is the secret of all progress. If gardening were easy, even under favourable circumstances, we should none of us care to do it.

It must strike everyone when driving through the streets of London in the summer how elaborately ugly is the planting of many of the window-boxes. What seems to me to look best is to keep the flowers as distinct and as unmixed as possible. To set out plants that are not really hardy before the end of May is waste of money, and gives me a feeling of unloving ignorance of plants which is as the murdering of the innocents to those who are fond of them. A pretty mixture is the yellow French Marguerite with two or three-according to the size of the box-little upright Cryptomeria japonicas, either in the middle or at each end of the box, according to the shape of the window. White French Daisies do just as well, if preferred. Calceolarias and white Daisies are also pretty. I have lived so little in London in the summer of late years that I am more prepared to criticise than to suggest. One day I saw outside a dining-room window some large, heavy, oblong Japanese flower-pots planted with single plants, and they looked very well, as one was able to see the growth of the plants. These Japanese pots are glazed, and much thicker than the ordinary flower-pot, and thus lessen evaporation and the risk of being blown over. No plants can possibly succeed on balconies or windows in ordinary English flower-pots unless they are sunk in boxes or other pots as a protection from the sun and wind.