THE LURE OF THE GARDEN 



phlox, will discover the utmost art in draining its water 

 toward the thick roots of its favorite, give it sun and 

 shadow, sweat and labor for it. If you snatch the 

 hateful progeny from its arms, leave only the slightest 

 portion of root behind, and that patient, devoted garden 

 will nurse the battered and wounded thing back again 

 to life and health, to flaunt triumphantly in bed and 

 border. 



Foiled of its propensities for bugs and weeds, a gar- 

 den has other ways of annoying you. Sometimes it 

 manifests what looks like the healthiest interest in de- 

 veloping whatsoever plants you give it to the lustiest 

 growth imaginable ; but it confines this growth to leaf 

 and branch, allowing not so much as one tiny floweret 

 to appear. At other times it turns its attention to 

 frustrating your color schemes, changing everything 

 magenta, or bursting out in screaming yellow where 

 you had planned a heavenly harmony of blues. 

 Again, refusing to grow grass in the circle around the 

 sun-dial, it assiduously struggles to bring it up in clumps 

 and patches in the paths. Occasionally, a garden will 

 become addicted to a spindly habit. Plant what you 

 will, everything shoots up on long, sickly stems, with 

 wads of leaf and pale flowers high in the air. Or pos- 

 sibly it will take a contrary direction, and shrubs that 

 ought to bear up bravely will lie lankly on the ground, 

 while even sunflowers and hollyhocks show short and 

 squat of limb. 



