Annuals 



is ruthless, for she is a tidy housewife — or garden- 

 wife — who will tolerate nothing, be it never so 

 beautiful, out of its place. She has no more feel- 

 ing for a seedling Shirley poppy than for the 

 wickedest of weeds (which the French call so aptly 

 mauvaises herbes). Now, in my light, sandy soil, 

 everything delights to seed itself, and often when 

 some flower has ensconced itself in some entirely 

 inappropriate place, I have not the heart to pluck 

 it out. It may be weakness : but I confess it with- 

 out shame. I should never dream, for instance, of 

 uprooting anywhere Miss Jekyll's triumph, the 

 nigella or love-in-a-mist, the lovely blue flower 

 nestling in its frail foliage, almost like a patch of 

 sky reflected in the water of a green stagnant pond : 

 surely one of the tenderest and most intimate 

 flowers of all : and its sweet name is not half sweet 

 enough. 



Sometimes too great a liberty is taken — poppies 

 especially are apt to take advantage of the least 

 indulgence, and then I am as ruthless as the most 

 professional of gardeners. If flowers will misbehave 

 themselves and grow like weeds, they must be 

 treated as such : — 



" / will go root away 

 The noxious weeds that without jwojit suck 

 The soil's fertility from tcholesome floicers:" 



*33 



