LAYING OUT THE GARDEN 19 



Time, that is to say the amount of leisure at 

 one's disposal, is of the utmost importance. It 

 takes time not only to make a garden, but to main- 

 tain and enjoy it. The moment that the garden 

 uses up more time than can be given to it com- 

 fortably, it gets beyond its, province play becomes 

 work. And a flower garden is no place for drud- 

 gery. Figure out then how much time you can 

 spend, comfortably, not merely during the season 

 just in sight but for at least a few years to come ; 

 and cut your garden cloth accordingly. 



Climate is safely disposed of only by the elimina- 

 tion of all but the really dependable flowers, re- 

 membering always that in some places hot, dry 

 summers are as much of a problem as severely 

 cold winters in others. Soil disadvantages can be 

 remedied wherever expense does not stand in the 

 way. Winds and the force of the summer sun are 

 broken by the planting of shrubs and vines. Little 

 or no sun is harder to get around, though the last 

 resort of a shady garden is far from being one to 

 be altogether deplored; sometimes such a garden 

 is a place of genuine delight. 



All this figuring out what is best to be done is 

 prime mental sport for long winter evenings. 

 Those are rare times for the planning of gardens 

 when the fire burns bright and you can sit and think, 

 devise and revise, with the comfortable feeling 

 that spring is still well in the future that there 

 will be no call to dig on the morrow. 



Hurry, indeed, is the last thing to enter into the 



