A GARDEN DIARY 129 



the perplexed gardener wonders at times how he 

 is to dispose of his too obliging property, and 

 ends by being not a little embarrassed by his 

 own wealth. 



There was one day last summer, when, re- 

 turning home after a short absence, and going 

 into the garden, I was not a little startled to 

 discover what a congregation of the giants 

 we had unwittingly been entertaining. A giant 

 may of course be highly ornamental, and a 

 giant that is eight feet high, and of a bright 

 canary-yellow throughout the greater part of that 

 length, is almost bound to be so. There were 

 I took the trouble to count them one hundred 

 and eleven such giants at that moment all in 

 flower together in the garden. Now considering 

 that the proportions of that garden are not those 

 of Kew or Versailles, there is no denying that 

 one hundred and eleven bright yellow giants, 

 all occupying it at the same time, affected the 

 mind with a certain sense of surplusage ! They 

 stood in rows along the grassy paths ; they 

 shouldered one another, and everything else out 

 of any place they had been allowed to spring 

 up in ; they appeared unexpectedly in out-of- 

 the-way corners of the copse, where the elderly 

 oak-scrub found itself reduced to the position of 

 a mere underling at the feet of these aspiring 

 biennials. To come suddenly round a corner 

 K 



