36 MY GARDEN 



silk vine does almost too well, and may ere long have 

 to pursue his progress elsewhere. The reward of 

 luxuriance in a small garden is often the reward of 

 zeal in a small world. People, and some plants, know 

 this ; they perceive how easy it is to over-do it, and 

 they err on the safe side. Gardeners, for instance, 

 are only liable to the negative error. The over-zealous 

 gardener is a fearful wild fowl, but fortunately as rare 

 as the unicorn. Some industrious things have already 

 been banished from my garden-room. Salpichroa 

 rhomboidea had to go. He did in one season an 

 amount of work that would have been quite reason- 

 able and creditable in ten years. At the end of the 

 autumn, Sharland, a boy and myself tackled him 

 together. We threw ourselves on him, held him 

 down, and lopped off a thousand branches. Then, 

 when he became weaker from loss of sap, we dug him 

 up and carried him off. He was borne insensible to 

 the kitchen garden, and, while still unconscious, 

 dropped into a hole under an old russet apple tree. 

 This year he is sprawling everywhere as if nothing 

 had happened to him, and the old russet has been 

 enveloped. Though it may seem harsh to say so, 

 salpichroa l is not a plant for a gentleman's garden. 

 I don't assert that he is vulgar, but coarse he certainly 

 must be called. His fate has been already determined 

 so far as I am concerned. I shall throw him out 



1 Salpichroa. By the way, the Supplement of Professor Nicholson's 

 grand Dictionary of Gardening tells us that this plant is half hardy and 

 suitable for trellises. Don't believe it. Salpichroa is as hardy as a polar 

 bear. 



