166 GARDENING WITH BRAINS 



as the only way of exposing its flowers to the 

 sunshine. 



I foresee the time when airships will daily 

 take tourists from Rio for a sail across the 

 tropical roof gardens. 



WILD-FLOWER GARDENS 



Our own wild flowers may not be so exotic and 

 brilliant in color as the Brazilian orchids and tree 

 blossoms, but it is some advantage to have them 

 grow on the ground instead of on treetops, acces- 

 sible only to parrots and monkeys and airmen. 

 What would Mrs. Theodore Thomas have done 

 in Brazil? She had the happy thought of making 

 up her garden entirely of transplanted wild 

 flowers and some other plants that are hardy 

 enough to fight their own battles, as the wild 

 ones do, in the severe climate of the White 

 Mountains. Beginning with a wheelbarrow- 

 load of black-eyed Susans to cover a discordant 

 wall, she continued to add flowers, shrubs, 

 vines, and weeds till she had so many that a 

 list of them takes up ten pages of her chatty 

 little book, Our Mountain Garden. 



She was particularly partial to weeds because 

 "if one gives a good weed the least chance it is 

 so grateful, and so easily turned into a hand- 

 some flower." The pale little lilac wild aster, 

 for instance, "is luxuriant in a cultivated 

 border. Each plant sends up a dozen or more 

 stalks three feet high, which are covered with 



