An excellent object lesson in the plants that are most suitable for gardening in the East End of London and other smoke-infested quarters may be seen at the "Country in Town Exhibition" which is held annually for fourteen days in the Town Hall, Stepney. There the pots of Creeping Jenny, Ivy, and other suitable plants for cultivating where the air is contaminated with impurities, do credit to the exhibitors and show us what perseverance and a knowledge of plant life under exceptionally adverse conditions of soil and atmosphere can bring about. The exhibit from Regent's Park, by authority of the First Commissioner of Works, shows at a glance the most suitable trees, shrubs, and other plants for town gardening. It is surprising, too, to what a state of perfection the slum dwellers in East Greenwich, Deptford, Lambeth, and other districts where the air is vitiated by impurities, can bring their box and window plants. Indeed, some of the big pans of Creeping Jenny and White and Blue Campanula (which, by the by, are par excellence the plants for confined districts where the air is heated and impure) that I have seen exhibited would do credit to country cultivators. But almost everywhere over London, particularly in the poorer quarters and where the air is most impure, I have noticed how well certain species are made to succeed, whether used as pot or box plants or for the decoration of the tiny patch of back garden. At many of the local flower shows, too, one is amazed at the condition of the plants that are brought for exhibition, and certainly some of the best grown and trained specimens of window box plants come from the worst slums of the great metropolis.

The Money Wort or Creeping Jenny (Lysitnachia Nummularia)

The Money Wort or Creeping Jenny (Lysitnachia Nummularia) evidently is well suited for window culture in the most smoky parts of our larger towns. Planted in good dampish loam, it soon spreads about and quickly forms a mass of healthy foliage, which during the summer is studded with its myriads of golden flowers. At an exhibition held in what might well be described as the smokiest and most confined of the London districts it was surprising to what a pitch of perfection the cultivation of this poor man's flower had been brought. From out of the narrow, confined streets where an impure, smoke-laden atmosphere must ever be present, no less than fifteen large pots and pans of the Lysimachia were brought, each vying with the other in point of general health and floriferousness. It is certainly a capital town plant, of simple requirements, and one of the showiest, when in flower, that could be named.

Campanula Mayii

Campanula Mayii and C. Isophylla alba are most successfully used as window plants throughout London generally. They seem by no means averse to a heated, smoky atmosphere, and, being of ready cultural requirements, are well adapted for growth under the trying conditions to which they are subjected in towns and cities. They do best and show off their beautiful, semi-pendulous flowers to advantage when used as hanging plants - a use to which both the plants are largely put throughout London generally.