OUR COUNTRY HOME 



but this must be seeded anew each year and is apt to grow straggly 

 hv August. The baby rambler put forth its big bunches of crim- 

 son flowers for one season, but I could never keep the faded ones 

 cut, and they did not cover the ground quite enough to be satisfac- 

 tory. Once we had snapdragon dwarf snapdragon, I want to 

 emphasize, but owing to either the too favorable conditions or a 

 mistake in the seed, great stalks shot up and lopped over and lay 

 down, until I was quite in despair. I did not want to stake them, 

 for it would have looked like a beanpole patch, and I could not 

 peg them. I like snapdragons too in their proper place. 



A woodbine hangs its strands gracefully over the wall at the 

 foot of the terrace steps, and the white jasmine reaches out from 

 under the wild cherry tree until their leaves mingle. A tall high- 

 bush cranberry stands sentinel behind the bleeding-hearts, and over 

 the northern wall the euonymus radicans struggles to climb. A 

 big clump of elms is entirely out of keeping in a tiny formal 

 garden; but here my old prejudice sways me. We found it there, 

 and I cannot bear to cut it down. Moreover, it is usually full of 

 birds, and shelters a nest or two in its thick foliage. Still farther 

 on. beyond the kitchen house, the service-yard wall of rough 

 plaster, six feet high, extends to the west. The woodbine clam- 

 bers over it and fringes the old monastery doorway, low arched, 

 and brown and banded with long iron hinges. In front of the wall 

 stand hollyhocks between high lilac bushes and the wild rudbeck- 

 ias, Newmanni and triloba and sub-tomentosa. 



Just outside the formal garden to the west are Shasta daisies, 



102 



