CHAPTER XVI 

 THE MAKING OF FLOWER PICTURES 



THERE is a particularly appealing sentence in 

 Miss JekylFs "Colour in Flower Gardens." This 

 reads: "It seems to me that the duty we owe to 

 our gardens and to our own bettering in our gar- 

 dens is so to use the plants that they shall form 

 beautiful pictures." Her ideal is "gardening that 

 may rightly claim to rank as a fine art." 



No garden ideal could be finer. Unfortunately 

 none is more difficult of attainment, in the complete 

 sense that Miss Jekyll has in mind. In gardens, as 

 elsewhere, "art is long," but likewise "time is fleet- 

 ing" there are other things to do. Most must 

 be content with shooting the arrow high, the while 

 they take a grain of comfort in the thought that 

 though they will inevitably fail to reach the mark 

 they will have something, and be the better, for the 

 striving. 



So these "beautiful pictures," even if for long 

 they may exist only as insubstantial visions, ought 

 to be the inspiration of the humblest as well as the 

 grandest of garden schemes. While not essential, 

 save to the highly sensitized nature, they do put a 



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