158 JOTTINGS OF A GENTLEMAN GARDENER 



not to give away. " Look at the labour I've put into 

 that border ! " they say. " If I cut the flowers it will 

 spoil the border, and I shall have nothing to show for all 

 my work ! No, my idea is if you cultivate flowers, let 

 them stay on the plants ; I won't have any plucking, or 

 cutting, or clipping them off." 



But surely this is a case of unnecessary selfishness. A 

 man of that type who will not have flowers cut for other 

 people, usually will not let any be cut for himself. His 

 house has a strange, bare look about it. You can hardly 

 tell he is a gardener, unless you see some gardening books 

 or horticultural papers on his table. 



" Is not a garden a place for flowers ? " he will ask me. 

 " Have you not said so yourself in the first chapter of 

 your book ? Then let a garden be a place for flowers ; 

 let it be the place for flowers, and not go spoiling plants 

 by cutting flowers, and spoiling flowers by sticking them 

 into pots in the house, or giving them away to be stuck in 

 jugs." 



I have come into contact with many such people ; and 

 I am happy to say that I have been able to convince them 

 that there is another side to the question, and have induced 

 them to modify their opinions. 



A fact which some do not recognise is that it is possible 

 to have flowers in the home, as well as a surplus to give 

 away, without robbing the garden seriously. This is 

 true in all cases where there is an annual, mixed, or peren- 

 nial border of any size. If there are rose-beds as well, 

 flowers should be abundant. $ *&% 



The garden may, in some cases, be bare for a day or 

 two after a large quantity of flowers have been cut, but 

 very soon it will be gay again, and the flowers may indeed 

 be better even than those out previously. 



Later on I give two lists of plants the flowers of which 

 are valuable for cutting. Generally speaking the more 

 you cut from most of the plants in these lists the more 

 you get. So far as my experience in gardening goes I 

 have found that plants are very generous beings. They 



