The Happy Garden 



East, are so associated with cottage gardens that 

 they bring only homespun romance. Alas ! In my 

 garden they will not grow well. They want richer 

 sandy soil, and nothing that I can do will make it 

 acceptable to them. They are susceptible to disease 

 and perish miserably. This year we are making a 

 supreme effort, and up to now the care bestowed 

 upon them is meeting its reward. They have been 

 planted in lines the length of the fruit garden, 

 where they look like sentinels guarding the fruit ; 

 but I must confess, I have very little pleasure in 

 them, or any plant grown like this ; I would have 

 every flower looking as though it had chosen its 

 own dwelling-place, and hollyhocks, brilliant against 

 the background of the pines, are not the same 

 thing as hollyhocks planted in line along a gravel 

 path. 



Other flowers are difficult, and there was a time 

 when clematis seemed to present an insolvable pro- 

 blem. I tried them everywhere, in borders, on walls 

 facing east, west and south. All in vain. They 

 grew to about six feet each summer, and then 

 withered, as though some awful blight had de- 

 scended on them. ... At last, when I built the 

 south wall, I planted clematis Jackmanni on the 

 north side of it, and trained it up to creep into the 

 sun. That satisfied it, and it has done bravely. 



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