GARDENS NEAR THE SEA 



at very small expense, and does not in the meantime 

 disturb the appearance of the garden. 



Among those who have true feeling for flowers, 

 and who do not regard them merely as pretty things to 

 make their gardens attractive, there is a desire to see 

 the trailing arbutus snugly covering the home ground 

 in earliest spring. The plant has, however, invariably 

 been found difficult, and even thought by many im- 

 possible, to transplant; and it is true that success in 

 the undertaking can only be expected when it is lifted 

 up with sufficiently large blocks of earth to leave the 

 running rootlets undisturbed. 



The arbutus delights in a rich, sandy soil, a spot 

 well shaded; and likes to enjoy, as nearly as possible, 

 the unfettered freedom and exemption from publicity 

 that it has in its wild home. In several gardens of the 

 New England and New Jersey coasts, I have seen the 

 arbutus fairly well established, and in at least one Long 

 Island garden it unclasps its buds simultaneously 

 with those of its relatives in the nearby wood from 

 which it was originally carried. 



To preserve the arbutus, if not in the garden proper, 

 at the edge of a clump of shrubbery, or where some 

 bit of wild planting begins, is indeed a pleasure, for 

 on its successful transplanting to the home grounds 

 may depend its continuance among us, since it now 

 seems likely to be rapidly exterminated through the 

 thoughtlessness and lack of knowledge of wild flower 

 gatherers. 



The dainty little flowers called bluets, or Quaker 

 ladies, Houstonia coerulea, have found their way from 



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