JANUARY 7 



advantage to all plant life and very injurious to Eoses 

 and many other things. For five or six months in the 

 winter I live away in London. People often envy me 

 this, and say : ' What could you do in the garden in the 

 winter ? ' But no true gardener would make this remark, 

 as there is much to be done at all times and seasons. 

 Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of 

 the imagination. You are always living three, or indeed 

 six, months hence. I believe that people entirely devoid 

 of imagination never can be really good gardeners. To 

 be content with the present, and not striving about the 

 future, is fatal. 



Living in London in the winter necessitates crowding 

 the little greenhouse to overflowing with plants and 

 flowers adapted for sending to London chosen because 

 they will bear the journey well, and live some time in 

 water on their arrival. 



January 16/&. I can hardly do better to-day than 

 tell you about my dark London room, and what I have in 

 it as regards plant life in this the worst month of the year. 

 I will begin with the dead and dried things that only bear 

 the memory of the summer which is gone. At the door 

 stand two bright-green olive- jars that came from Spain, 

 into which are stuck large bunches of the white seed-vessels 

 of Honesty and some flowers of Everlastings (Helichrysum 

 bracteatum). These last are tied in bunches on to Bamboo 

 sticks, to make them stand out. Inside the room, on the 

 end of the piano, is a large dish of yellow, green, and white 

 Gourds. I grow them because they have that peculiar 

 quality, in common with Oranges and autumn leaves, of 

 appearing to give out in the winter the sunlight they have 

 absorbed in the summer. Their cultivation does not 

 always succeed with me, as they want a better, sunnier 

 place than I can sometimes afford to give them. In a 

 very wet summer they fail altogether. The seeds are 



