THE JOYOUS ART OF GARDENING 



charm. The display may have cost thousands, but if the pur- 

 pose is to make as startling an effect as possible for the astound- 

 ing of the visitor or passer-by, rather than the pleasure and 

 happiness of the owner, such gardening must always miss 

 charm. Like the prayer of the Pharisee, it "has its reward" 

 and is seen of men. The kingdom of art, no more than the 

 kingdom of heaven, is entered into that way. 



The garden art for which I hold a brief is within the reach 

 of every one who loves the plants enough to place them where 

 they can grow happily and be in harmony with the house, the 

 situation, and each other. 



Much has been written about the beauty of wide stretches of 

 turf, about the wisdom of massing the shrubbery and "creat- 

 ing a park-like effect," which is an excellent thing when the 

 grounds are spacious enough to admit of such treatment. 

 The wide greensward framed in flowering shrubs and trees is 

 restful, indeed, to look upon and should be a part of every 

 place blessed with sufficient ground. But the garden which is 

 loved and labored in and enjoyed to the utmost is the flower- 

 garden a flower-garden close enough to a man's house to be 

 lived in, not one which has for its purpose the making of an 

 effect from a distance. A rose is the same whether grown in a 

 nursery row or trained on a trellis around one's window, but 

 the latter becomes a friend and intimate and is beloved accord- 

 ingly, increasingly as the years go by. It is for this reason 

 that they never become really "at home," that the so-called 

 "bedding plants" are few in the gardens of real flower-lovers. 

 They are transients outside talent brought in temporarily for 

 display and so are not comparable in interest with the little 

 crocus that comes up every year in the grass and may be 

 loved and looked for. 



To most amateurs the real fun of gardening is in the flower- 



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