Within My Garden Walls 43 



rooted perennials than the cool wet rocks that underlie many 

 of my beds. They afford a perfect drainage, yet retain the 

 moisture to an astonishing degree. Even in a very dry season 

 I often find the walks of the lower garden quite damp in the 

 early morning. When once rooted among these rocks plants 

 establish themselves amazingly. I once planted seeds of the 

 hollyhock mallow (Malva alcea), and as they gave no evidence 

 of growth the first year I forgot all about them. Late in the 

 following year I discovered a new plant in bloom, which, 

 when analyzed, proved to be the forgotten mallow. I was de- 

 lighted but not for long. The third year it grew like Jack's 

 beanstalk, not the promised three feet, but five and still on 

 until eight feet high. I stood about helplessly witnessing this 

 phenomenon, yet powerless to check it. It waxed still 

 stronger the fourth year and covered a space of four and a half 

 feet through, by eight feet high imagine thirty-six cubic feet 

 of mallow with its wretched little straggling bloom. I deter- 

 mined to evict it. I used first the gentle persuasion of a potato 

 digger, the most homeopathic treatment I ever apply. It 

 firmly resisted. Then I got the spading fork, but the mallow 

 stood unshaken. Then I seized the pickax and crowbar and 

 wrought fearful havoc, extracting the greater part of it, at least 

 two bushels of roots that were a foot and a half long. A little 

 of it was kept to set out in the dryest and most exposed por- 

 tion of the garden, and it has meekly shrunk to a three-foot 

 growth. This year I found a portion still remaining in its 

 former place, lording it over a fine lot of pink Lilium spe- 

 ciosum and I peremptorily took off all the heads when only a 

 foot high. I have decapitated it regularly once a month 

 throughout the summer. It is now bigger than I am; a small 

 portion has become equal to the whole, in defiance of mathe- 

 matics. I mean to get it out if I have to sacrifice the pink 

 lilies. 



