Perennials for a Thought-out Garden 203 



owned a remarkable collection of the choicest flowers in a little 

 garden of his own tending that people drove miles to see. Two 

 hours a day were all he permitted himself to spend upon it, yet 

 it was in faultless order, and there were always flowers for every 

 visitor to carry away and flowers for every room in his charming 

 little house. When Wordsworth lived in Dove Cottage with his 

 sister Dorothy, on an income of eighty pounds a year, she con- 

 trived to have a hardy garden, some of her precious daffodils 

 and perennials persisting there to this day. Charles Kingsley's 

 favourite plants which he raised in the garden at Eversley are still 

 cherished there by his daughter. 



Seed that is kept long out of the ground loses much of its 

 vitality, which is why it is well to plant it as soon as possible 

 after it ripens. It is a safe precaution against slow germination 

 to soak it over night. In any case some seeds take weeks to sprout. 

 Long after you have counted them dead they may rise to glory. 

 Every place requires a seed bed, large or small, according to the 

 demands made upon it. Perhaps no gardener ever thought 

 he had land enough for his vegetables, intense cultivation and 

 scientific rotation of crops being meaningless phrases to the 

 average man with the hoe. But, in spite of his protests and 

 possible grudge, it is well to sacrifice a few carrots and cabbages, 

 if need be, to a plant nursery. Is not "the beautiful as useful 

 as the useful"? Few perennials or biennials bloom the first 

 year, and their unadorned infancy should be passed in the seclu- 

 sion of a nursery near the water supply in the kitchen garden. 



In July, or as soon as some early crop like peas, radishes, 

 or lettuce has been gathered, deeply fork the ground that was 

 well enriched in the spring, and thoroughly rake it again and 

 again to pulverise the soil. If the ground be heavy, lighten it 



