GARDENING BY MYSELF. gy 



other places, keep jour eyes open. I have 

 gathered seeds from refuse plants tossed 

 over a garden wall on the Staten Island 

 shore, and found a fine cactus cutting on 

 the pavement in Broadway. And when 

 times of sickness bring baskets of green- 

 house beauty to your hands, then let the 

 sweetness and the kindness take root and 

 grow, in bits of myrtle and lavender and 

 geranium, in small shoots of rare roses, or, 

 perhaps, in the mere little fruit -stem of a 

 cactus flower. 



If your flower beds are at all far apart, 

 or even separated, you will find it has a 

 pleasant effect to divide the flowers as 

 well — I do not mean in the way of mass- 

 ing, but let the combinations be different. 

 Do not have everything everywhere, ex- 

 cept, indeed, those few rare things, like 

 roses, without which no combination is 

 quite complete. But let there be a natural 

 system of surprises in your garden. Keep 

 the heliotropes rather to one quarter, and 

 let carnations have their special region of 

 9 



