90 A GARDEN DIARY 



boulders, with which the slopes are covered, 

 rise higher and higher, and larger and larger, 

 till they tower into the air over one's head, 

 perfect monoliths. In and out, above, behind, 

 and between them grow the rhododendrons, 

 in their flowering season an absolute feast of 

 colour, the sort of thing that in a cultivated age 

 pilgrimages will be formed to venerate. To 

 see them in such a place is to get a new im- 

 pression of the possibilities of heroic gardening. 

 One's eyes are caught, one's whole mind and 

 spirit is swept away upon a tide of colour ; the 

 grey micaceous granite of the ravine, the heather 

 looking down over its top, the long blue river 

 of sky, even the sea and its ships, seeming to 

 be merely so many adjuncts and accessories of 

 the central picture. 



Such conditions are not to be found every 

 day in the week, or in everybody's back garden. 

 We have to work out our own redemption, 

 each of us as we best can, with such materials 

 as the Fates have lent us. Happily, as regards 

 natural conditions, here in West Surrey, the 

 garden-lover, whatever other difficulties he may 

 have to contend with, has much to be grateful 

 for. Thanks to its blessed unproductiveness, 

 the harrow has literally in many cases never 

 passed over its soil ; its very weeds being mostly 

 those of Nature's own introduction, not imported 

 ones. Her handiwork is still plainly visible on 



