FLORIST

Flowers have been gifted more than anything else these days. These natural beauties are available in such a wide range of colours and shapes and some have such lovely fragrance that it becomes difficult to remain allure to their charms. The neighbourhood florists as well as online flower shops are there in every region to make sure that the most beautiful and aesthetical arrangements are there for you to pick from.

Nothing beats being able to look and feel the flowers yourself and then picking up the right bunch for the right person and occasion. Flowers also have a fragrance (smelling them is something that you cannot do in an online flower shop) and it does make a difference while making a selection.

Humea elegant growing in a wall border at Hampton Court With plumbago and other not very hardy plants made me decide to try again with this most aromatic of all plants. It is quite beautiful when growing and nothing scents the house in winter so sweetly and mysteriously as its feathery brown plumes.

It was in Mr. Norman Hadden's well-known Porlock garden that I saw Helleborus sternii in bloom for the first time. I do not know if there is anything different in this hybrid from the corsicus x lividus cross, of which seeds are regularly offered. H. sternii is a cross between corsicus and lividus, and I have heard that the good form of corsicus called Bauer's Hybrid has the same parentage.

Mid-December is the time of year when I rejoice to see my big euphorbias bending over the tips of their long stems; I never get tired of watching this wonderful trick of nature. One day the stems are quite straight with a nice little rosette at the top of each. Then they stiffen up, and I spend my odd moments gently feeling them to see if the stiffening process has started. When it has I know that very soon they will slowly bend over to take the shape of a crozier.

Gaura is rather a flimsy plant, the stalks are quite tall but they grow rather in a tangled mass, and! think need to be put among other tall plants, but plants of a more solid character so that the dancing white flowers of the gaura come foaming out from a dark background. I planted mine in the open, which was a mistake.

Gardeners are becoming more bulb-minded because they realise how easy they are to please and what interest they can bring to the garden. Fritillaries are almost as popular as snowdrops and many of the more usual ones can be bought quite easily. There are others that can be grown from seed as more and more enterprising collectors are bringing back new varieties.

White flowers are needed to tone down the crude yellow of Chrysanthemum Jante Wells. I don't know the history of this plant but I can never believe that it is an old one. The colour is too hard and uncompromising for cottage gardens. Nor is this chrysanthemum as tough as the others. I never lose the other pom-pom chrysanthemums in the winter, but I cannot keep Jante Wells, which is another reason why I think it is a recent acquisition.

Even our native form can become a handsome, statuesque plant if grown where it has space to develop. In its native haunts it is often huddling under hedges and bushes and grows bent and crooked. H. foresides has its own beauty of contrast, the whole top of the plant green at its palest and freshest, with maroon to edge the flowers, and below leaves so dark that they are nearly black.

Even brighter, the green-leaved C. alba Westonbirt has stems that are bright sealing-wax red It can be cut down drastically in the spring, to ground level if necessary, and this undoubtedly is a factor in getting good colour in the winter stems.

Clerodendron baingei is always an uncertainty. It gets cut to the ground every winter and the new growths that make a leisurely appearance are only just about ready to flower when the first frosts of the winter are imminent.

There is one periwinkle which will flower all through the winter if it is given a good position and if the weather is kind. Sometimes V. acutiloba is sold for V. difformis, but the true plant, which comes from south-west Europe, has pale slaty-blue flowers and neat, medium-sized leaves.

As a general rule I am not fond of plants which disappear completely after flowering. If by chance the label disappears there is danger of damaging them with a fork. Also it is very easy to plant something else where they are growing.

Among the bigger-flowered pinks the old cottage clove is still the best, but it seems to be given a back seat these days Other crimson doubles are grown but they do not have the scent or the color of the old flower. I have been given several that are said to be improved forms of the old cottage clove, but they do not flower so freely nor smell so sweetly.

Always I am having to guard against too much yellow in the garden. It is easy to over-yellow the garden scheme in the spring, and again in the autumn there is a chance that the golden- flowered plants will be too overpowering. And if one isn't very careful there will be too much yellow in July.

Although the ordinary blue and pink pulrnonaria, P. oireinalis, does not flower till late February and early March, the green- leaved, red-flowered form we call rubra starts cocking an eye at me in December. I am very fond of this pulmonaria, with its clean, light red flowers.

Although Etyngium giganteam flowers earlier in the summer, it is in September when it loses its colour substance and becomes a whitened ghost. The great gardeners of the beginning of the century appreciated this prickly subject, which has all the soft colour and good contour of an eryngitim when it first comes out but becomes white and papery instead of fading.

Variable ratio mark-up has different mark-ups depending upon two factors-the type of design or the type of flower and the labor required to design with it. Labor-intensive designs or flowers would have a higher mark-up.

The irises that flower in January, apart from the various forms of I. unguicularis and I. hi strio and I. hi strioide s , are not easy. Most of them will flower the first year and after that are seen no more. Shown on the stands at Vincent Square they look so inviting and easy that one is tempted over and over again.

No one would say that January is the best month for gardening, but when I think about it, it seems to me that I've had some of my best gardening days in that month.