CHAPTER V 



PLANTS SUITABLE AND UNSUITABLE 



IT is natural enough for those who are young in gardening 

 matters to be disappointed when they are warned that plants 

 from the hardy and half-hardy classes only must be reckoned 

 upon for cold greenhouse culture. What is the use of a 

 greenhouse at all, they are ready to ask, if only common, 

 everyday flowers can be grown in it ? 



Let me try to expound both its use and its charm. The 

 craving for flowers is universal, but in winter we want them 

 in our rooms rather than out of doors. The garden has a 

 winter beauty of its own, and we know and love it well, but 

 it is not the beauty of flowers. The tracery of bare boughs 

 against the sky, the glow of scarlet Holly berries midst polished 

 leaves, the quiet grey tones of Rosemary and Lavender all 

 these in their various ways give a sense of restful waiting for 

 the coming activities of spring, and they are very dear to us. 

 But all the same we want flowers, for, lacking two things, 

 books and flowers, no home looks home-like. We can buy 

 them, doubtless, but " boughten " flowers do not satisfy the 

 craving that will not be still, and we wander out into the 

 garden ready to welcome the homeliest floweret which has 

 dared to brave the winter storms. What are we likely in 

 most localities to find? Christmas Roses maybe, but 

 besmirched; Snowdrops, not always snow-white, unless, 

 haply, a carpet of turf lies spread beneath them ; Laurustinus 

 except in the milder South hopeful-looking at a distance, 



