THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN 



hated it, but the great mid- Victorian man prob- 

 ably never had a chance to see the thing well 

 done. You recall what he wrote of English flower 

 gardens : 



"A flower garden is an ugly thing, even when 

 best managed; it is an assembly of unfortunate 

 beings, pampered and bloated above their nat- 

 ural size; stewed and heated into diseased growth; 

 corrupted by evil communication into speckled 

 and inharmonious colors; torn from the soil which 

 they loved, and of which they were the spirit and 

 the glory, to glare away their term of tormented 

 life among the mixed and incongruous essences 

 of each other, in earth that they know not, and 

 in air that is poison to them." 



I should like to bring Mr. Ruskin back to life 

 again, show him some color achievements in flower 

 gardening in England and America to-day, and 

 hear him say, "A new order reigneth." 



But back to the crocus ! Where drifts of Crocus 

 purpureuSi var. grandiflorus, were blooming under 

 leafless Japanese quince, blooming quite by them- 

 selves, a fine show of color of the same order was 

 had, really only a transition from one key to 

 another, by flinging along the ground, planting 

 where they fell, heavy bulbs of hyacinth Lord 

 80 



