PREFACE 



Too often is the garden at home marred by the reproach 

 of dullness that is apparent in every bed and border, in 

 every walk nay, in every weed. There is nothing 

 individual in its charm ; it has no glamour of its own. 

 Its successes are those of a hundred others, and there 

 is nothing characteristic even in its faults. 



Commonplace practice fashions a wide groove in 

 which it is easy to follow, but from which it becomes 

 increasingly difficult to escape. So one home gardener 

 works very much like another because his attention is 

 fixed on the long, straight road in front, which has thrown 

 dust in his eyes, blinding him to the charm of the luxuriant 

 hedgerows on either side. An old French proverb says, 

 " La variete c'est la vie," but the average owner of a 

 garden appears to have views of his own on the subject. 

 Otherwise, to take only one instance, why, five years 

 ago, if he wanted a climbing rose, did he choose Crimson 

 Rambler, and later, when dispensing with this, select 

 only Dorothy Perkins ? For the simple reason that his 

 neighbour did the same. 



The amateur gardener is the most difficult person in 

 the world to convince at least, until he becomes fairly 

 accomplished. As I have put it somewhere in these 

 pages, he continues " to grow the weeds that cluster on 



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