GARDENS NEAR THE SEA 



of many seaside places has a humid quality that causes 

 much plant life to flourish at its best. In many places 

 by the sea there are to be seen varieties of plants 

 attaining a richness and fulness of growth such as is 

 seldom noticed inland. On Long Island to-day there 

 are plants of no particular association with the sea that 

 have rivaled the proportions of exaggerated dreams. 



To attempt garden building by the sea, without 

 placing this curb on the natural preference for certain 

 plants, is indeed a folly. The story has been told 

 of a northern woman, a seaside dweller, who, when 

 visiting the southland, became enraptured with the 

 Cherokee rose. In her mind's eye she saw it climbing, 

 twining, and bursting out into a great luxuriance of 

 bloom about the walls of her own home. On her 

 return she made elaborate preparation for its planting. 

 This rose, however, is not hardy in the North a fact 

 so well known that no one ventured to repeat it to 

 this energetic woman, whose apparent confidence in 

 the matter made it seem as if she had found some 

 unique method of making it withstand the cold. But 

 the trouble and the expense and all the thoughts of 

 beauty she had entertained amounted to nothing. 

 In the end she was content to plant the climbing roses 

 which had proved hardy in that locality and which were 

 also very beautiful. The experience, therefore, was not 

 futile; for had she not seen in the South the possibilities 

 of the Cherokee rose, she might never have become 

 interested in the northern hardy climbers, and thus 

 might have been without the pleasure that growing 

 them can give. 



[16] 



