150 A Little Maryland Garden 
appear like queer little green clubs among 
its grass-like leaves. 
Zinnias are August flowers. Many people 
dislike them for their stiffness, but the little 
garden could not do without them. In its 
first year an old coloured woman, who 
watched my first efforts to cover the bare 
ground with great interest, gave me seeds 
of zinnias and marigolds from her own little 
garden plat. The zinnias came up in all 
sorts of colours, some handsome and some 
impossible. There is always the risk of 
getting some flowers that seem to be the 
product of aniline dyes. But they make 
tall bushes, and introduce strong and often 
fine colour into the garden when bloom is on 
the wane, and continue so late that I, for one, 
have never found anything to take their place. 
One year I thought to overcome the introduc- 
tion of coal-tar shades by getting only two 
colours, gold and rose. The gold came true; 
but the rose was so faded, such a dingy 
old-rose, that I wished I had followed my 
usual custom of getting the mixed seeds. 
