SEPTEMBER 215 



To-day the September garden is still a spot of exquisite 

 blending of colours, standing out in many places as a beauti- 

 ful picture graced in a golden frame. The garden's contents 

 are as yet a mixture of Summer and Autumn flowers, which 

 no longer partake of the delicacy of Spring flowers nor retain 

 Summer's primal beauties, but are all of sturdier growth. 

 Surrounding the great seed-filled discs of the sunflowers a 

 charming study of bird life we may behold in the blue-tits. 

 Watch their many antics as they cling to the drooping heads 

 of the giant sunflowers, perching in the quaintest of attitudes 

 whilst wrenching a seed, then darting to a near fence to enjoy 

 the spoil. These birds are easily detected by their little not 

 unmelodious snatches of song. The robin's song grows 

 sweeter and its breast brighter, although its beauty of hue 

 is somewhat lost amid the wealth of bright-tinted flowers and 

 changing foliage; we shall admire it when all the colour from 

 the garden has departed, singing to us in the wintry days to 

 come, perched upon some frost-glittering fence, there gleam- 

 ing like a rose left ungathered by Summer in her flight, or 

 hopping upon the snow-white garden-bed like a blossom 

 blown from a sunny Summer-land. 



To-day I gather perfect roses from the garden, together with 

 lovely sprays of blue plumbago ; these and African marigolds, 

 orange and lemon-tinted dahlias, single and double the latter 

 the very life of the garden at this season make a gay posy. 



Climbers and creepers are never more pleasing than now: 

 the Virginia creeper, without the loss of its green freshness, 

 takes on its leaves the Autumn glow. Honeysuckle and 

 bryony, where they mingle together about some arbour, are 

 now a joy to behold. Near them, in the herbaceous border, 



