JUNE 97 



martin from her mud hut over the door 

 skims out into the sunshine. When she 

 begins to sit there will be little time for 

 these wide sweeps of flight, or to idle upon 

 the Rose arches, twittering and preening 

 those long, blue-black wings of hers ! On 

 either side the porch there grows a 

 lavender bush and a rosemary. The 

 lavender is failing, as it did last summer. 

 The bud-stalks look quite firm and healthy 

 up to a certain point, and then each head 

 hangs down and in a little while they 

 look withered and black as if they were 

 strangled. * Some failure at the root,' is 

 the Gardener's verdict for this and many 

 another unpleasantness in the garden. 

 Is it not mostly 'failure at the root' in 

 many of our mistakes outside the garden ? 

 None of the other lavender plants seem 

 affected in the same way, fortunately. 

 Ferns and a fine root of Turncap Lily 

 grow at the back of the lavender, and up 

 the porch wall is a young Banksia rose 

 climbing apace, and flowering for the first 

 time. It ought to have been yellow, but 

 it has come white. Under the rosemary 



