APRIL 77 



their own work to do, even on the smallest 

 grounds, and should rightly be a smooth 

 stretch of even, well-clipped sward of blended 

 grasses and white clover. Even the presence 

 of the tiny Veronica, 



" The little speedwell's darling blue," 

 or pink-tipped English daisies, escaped from 

 the border, and lapsed back into single blessed- 

 ness, is not to be tolerated ; while only less 

 pernicious than plantain is the intrusive little 

 ground ivy, or Jill-over-the-ground, which is 

 in itself an exceedingly pretty plant, with clean 

 round leaves and very attractive little blossoms. 

 If custom bars out these gay little vagrants, 

 why should it insist on the tiresome and costly 

 planting of crocus bulbs, which, so used, can 

 never have the advantage of the close massing 

 in which they show at their best, and where 

 they can mature their leaves and store up food 

 against the winter in a way impossible on the 

 lawn ? Nature abhors a spotty effect. If she 

 uses but one or two specimens of a flower in 

 her landscape making, she so blends it with its 

 surroundings as to double its value, and she 

 never dissociates it from the background best 

 suited to it. 



