CHAPTER II 



THE SEASIDE GARDEN UNDER DIFFICULTIES 



IT is true that there are many places in which the 

 sea and the surrounding plant life seem to come 

 into peculiar harmony. Along the Mediter- 

 ranean flowers bloom, fruits ripen, and all the out- 

 pourings of nature take on their full strength of beauty. 

 In other places by the sea, however, there is a constant 

 struggle to keep its immense power from overriding 

 and ruining the garden. Yet, almost, before all else 

 there is the wind to regard as an ever-present force 

 both friendly and baneful. 



Before a seaside garden is located, the ways of 

 the wind and as many of its vagaries as possible should 

 be taken under consideration. It should be observed 

 whether its average play about the proposed site of 

 the garden is rough or gentle, also whether there are 

 any natural or artificial breaks in its way. Along 

 certain stretches by the ocean, where young trees have 

 been planted, it is pitiful to see that repeated onslaughts 

 of the wind have bent their stems almost to semi- 

 circles, and that, from year to year, their growth is 

 so slight as to be barely perceptible. To plant these 

 trees in a place so dominated by the wind was to pit 

 them in an unequal struggle. Some shrub of twisted 

 and thick-growing habit, or an evergreen, having the 



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