76 FLOWER GARDENING 



reason that it was no garden at all. Yet it was 

 very much of a garden to a dreamer of dreams, 

 who naturally was not always over-careful to draw 

 a distinct line between the substantial and the 

 insubstantial. 



Treasures, not a few of them choicer from asso- 

 ciation, had been brought together. If the idea was 

 still lingering on the border of vagueness, there 

 was a plain enough nucleus; and one the sounder 

 because it was largely permanent. While the 

 foundation was not laid, the first of the stones were 

 on the spot. 



But that did not begin to be all of the initial 

 season's showing; else this tale would be less 

 interesting, as well as shorter. There was the 

 experience, that had been accumulating the while 

 the garden grew from nothing into the hope, if 

 not the present semblance, of something. The 

 dreamer had known flowers from childhood had 

 pottered with them indoors and outdoors; but for 

 the first time in his life he had been handling 

 hardy plants, other than a few bulbs. 



Already there was a feeling of conquest. The 

 hardy garden had been sensed and a glittering of 

 practical knowledge of its spring work, its summer 

 work and its autumn work was indelibly impressed 

 on the mind. Perennial and biennial were now 

 fixed terms. Out of indefiniteness were beginning 

 to come ideas as to succession of bloom in the 

 garden, the use of blossoms and foliage in the way 

 that the painter employs the pigments on his palette 



