My Garden in Spring 



in spite of the richness of our avian fauna and well-wooded, 

 countrified surroundings. Fortunately, being due north 

 of London, we do not get so many second-hand London 

 fogs as our nearness suggests. South winds rarely follow 

 a period of fog, nor do fogs often last for several days in 

 London, until their own weight spreads them out as far as 

 this place, so we do not get the genuine article so badly or 

 so often as do Kew and Acton and other places on the 

 south side of London. 



I cannot believe there is a drier garden to be found 

 in England. It is on the edge of that district which I 

 think is classed with Yarmouth as having the lowest rain- 

 fall of Great Britain, and lies in a centre seldom visited by 

 heavy thunderstorms ; the higher ground running from 

 Enfield to Potter's Bar and Hatfield, and the Lea Valley 

 on our other side, seem to lure away our rain-clouds. 

 Storms often divide within sight of khaki-coloured lawns 

 and flagging flowers to flood the railway lines at Ponder's 

 End and Waltham, and do equally damp and doughty deeds 

 for St. Albans, leaving us as dry as ever, an insulting sort 

 of wind perhaps blowing down a barrowful of dead Lime 

 leaves on to the lawn even in mid-July. This alone seems 

 sufficient to make the garden as designed by nature fit 

 only for xerophytic plants from desert and steppe and 

 soilless cliff, or even the Moon itself when a collector gets 

 as far. But the wonder is that anything else besides 

 Opuntias, Sedums, and Houseleeks can exist through a 

 summer, for the soil is in league with the climate. In the 

 greater part of the garden, digging below the surface 

 brings one face to face with gravel, splendidly healthy 

 10 



