25m), or thereabouts, and which will prove so useful and effective when grouped among perhaps dwarf shrubs like potentillas, hebes, lavenders and the like to make a rich and varied assembly, to flower in their turn for many months. Few of them will need supporting, and, when once established, they are true perennials increasing in beauty yearly. PLANTING PATTERNS Visualising that perennials grow from ground level each year, it is a good idea to put early flowering plants towards the back. Here such things as the royal blue anchusas, oriental poppies, orange and pink alstroemerias, lupins, bearded irises, Dicentra spectabilis (bleeding heart or lady-in-the-bath, an exquisite spring flowerer) and blue Geranium sylvaticum-none of which is particularly impressive after flowering-will be obscured by the growth of later flowering plants. On the other hand the front of the bed or border need not be flowerless; we have a different class of plant to choose for this, the early flowering plants whose foliage remains beautiful for the rest of the season, such as the heucheras, whose airy spires of scarlet or pink over neat rounded leaves give such joy in June, alongside the pink or crimson daisies of pyrethrums (technically Chrysanthemum coccineum) and the columbines or aquilegias, in a large range of tints, easily raised from seeds. Quite early, too, are Euphorbia poly chroma (£. epithymoides) in the usual "greenery-yallery" of the spurge family, and the grey-white spires of Veronica gentianoides ascending over mats of dark green variegated leaves. A little later Alchemilla mollis or lady's mantle producesil clouds of tiny sulphury green stars, a good contrast to Geranium 'Johnson's Blue' and the taller, perennial yellow foxglove, Digitalis grandiflora, with white or lilac-blue from Campanula latiloba. The vivid cerise-crimson 1 Lychnis 'Abbotswood Rose' may not appeal to everyone but its fierce colour is tempered by its velvety grey leaves, while intriguing pinky-white tubular flowers borne on prickly spikes of Morina longifolia will enhance any planting. There are two grassy-leaved plants for contrast, the little white St. | Bernard's lily (Anthericum liliago, whose best form is known as 'Major' or 1 'Algeriense') and the lemon-yellow day lily, Hemerocallis flava,with inex- I pressibly sweet scent. Seldom seen but of special excellence is the long-lived clump-forming burning bush, Dictamnus albus. The white is more attractive, I find, than its | subdued lilac-red form purpureus. Elegant flowers with long stamens are I carried in spikes; the whole plant is aromatic, so much so that the I red-brown oily seed pods will produce a puff of flame if a lighted match be held beneath them on a hot still day in August. Something quite "different" | for early summer are two other spurges, Euphorbia palustris and E. griffithii, t the first in lime-yellow and the second in brick-red; both last long in flower followed by beautiful foliage.