I wonder if anyone has been so surprised as I was at seeing a pink bloom in, the midst of the verbenas. I ran to examine it and found it was my "hen and chickens" in bloom.

I really didn't know it ever bloomed. The stalk was ten inches high and had a bloom at each side of the end of it. They have continued as it grew taller and are much like a snapdragon blossom. I wish knew when it would bloom again or if it ever would. It would be a nice garden mate to our solar landscape lights.

There is another plant in the flower bed that is blooming, and I don't know the name of it. It has a pink bloom much like the snapdragon only the stalk is pointed with bloom all the way up. Leaf is long and pointed. It is a perennial.

My caladiums have been very beautiful this year, and I have counted twenty - six different kinds of leaves. But I have no whites among them. If anyone has one with white in the leaf, and will sell me a bulb, I will be glad. Or I will exchange a pink variegated leaf for a white one.

The columbine has long been a favorite of mine but when I saw the change in the flower to that of the Clematis I was astonished and sent for it at once. I wondered how it was managed. The flowers are in several soft shades and are very abundant with open flowers without spurs or corolla. It is different from any other flower and is the newest improvement in flowers. I take off my hat to those who improve our flowers. If the dependence were in me everybody would still be gathering the same flowers our forefathers admired.

But even the columbine has waited a long time for improvement. I remember gathering it in the woodland ardund home when a child.