168 A Little Maryland Garden 
the border is full of bloom, and of the most 
effective sort. The carnations still have a 
few fragrant flowers every day, but they 
make no impression on the garden picture. 
All the praises I have read of the hardy 
asters come back to me, as I look at their 
clouds of lovely colour. Experience does 
not always bear out the assertions of writers 
on gardens, no doubt often because of the 
different conditions under which the flowers 
are grown. But the late surprise, the fresh- 
ness when ‘‘the lave” of the garden is 
drooping, the bold but delicate colours, the 
hardiness that asks no favours when we 
are giving all our enthusiastic care to the 
early summer favourites, must endear these 
darlings of the fall. 
When I consider the long care of the China 
asters from early spring, when the seeds 
are sown in boxes, the potting and trans- 
planting, the war on pests, and the coddling 
we give them before they reward us with 
flowers, my heart goes out to the woodland 
beauties, whose amplitude of bloom makes 
