OCTOBER GLORIES 141 



CHAPTER XV 



OCTOBER GLORIES— AND OCTOBER WORK 



THEN, if ever, come perfect days," might have been said 

 as truly of October on the banks of the Savannah as of 

 June on the banks of the Charles. If there is a time of the year 

 when the colors of the blossoms seem most gorgeous, when our 

 gardens are most attractive, it is the time of the Harvest Moon. 

 There is a charm, a witchery, about a garden in the glory of the 

 October moonlight that is to be met there in no other month of 

 the year. It must be that the chill of the almost-frosty nights, 

 that the seeing of the garden-children droop under the tang of 

 cold in the air and watching them fade one by one, gives to those 

 that are left a supreme wizardry that their more tender brothers 

 and sisters did not possess. 



Always the Fall Roses are richer in color and in fragrance, 

 finer in every way, than those that queened it in the Spring. 

 Never does the Scarlet Sage shine so brightly as when on some 

 frosty morning it stands alone — sole survivor of an onslaught 

 from Jack Frost. The Phlox holds up its snowy masses to the 

 Autumn sun and the glory of the regal Chrysanthemums is only 

 another marvel of an October day. 



The beauties that stand amidst impending desolation serve 

 to remind us that time presses and Christmas gardens must be 

 made now. With good soil, an exposure that greets the morning 

 sun. Pansy plants put in the open now will be gloriously beautiful 

 in December. I purchase from the nurseries in October my first 

 planting of Pansies for Christmas blossoms in the porch boxes 

 and borders. The South is so hot in July and x^ugust that closer 

 attention is required for the seedlings than I have time to give; 



