viii THE GAEDENEE'S COMPANION 



learn many lessons of patience and perseverance, 

 often having failures and disappointments, but also 

 rejoicing in numberless delightful successes. 



Now there are many people who wish to make 

 their garden pretty, but who are very much at a 

 loss how to begin laying out a new bit of ground, 

 or improving an old garden which has become 

 rather a wilderness of weeds. 



One often meets people who are ready enough 

 to admire a beautiful garden, but who remark at 

 the same time that " they can do nothing "with 

 their own garden, "the soil is so poor," or "the 

 situation is so bad". Do not believe them; you 

 can, with care and patience, make a pleasing 

 garden in almost any soil or situation. 



Look around you at the cottage gardens of 

 your own village ; some have no attempt at flower 

 gardens, some have a stiff bed of Geraniums and 

 annuals, with a few standard Eoses perhaps, while 

 others are full of carefully tended plants of every 

 description, Eoses or Vines covering the walls of 

 the house, tall Hollyhocks grouped in a corner by 



