THE GARDEN At HOME 



admiring friends, I am met with the remark, " How 

 wonderful for this time of year," though I try to 

 impress on them that they are not wonderful in the least ; 

 in fact, they are commonplace, if they only knew it. I 

 have said so many times to my gardening friends and 

 acquaintances that all they have to do is to dig a hole 

 in the soil in November, mix in a little bone-meal or rotted 

 manure, plant the right kinds of roses, make them firm, 

 and cut them back in March, and they may have lovely 

 blooms in all sorts of bewitching shades of colour from 

 May-day to Michaelmas. And gradually I believe their 

 gardens are losing the John Hoppers and Boules de 

 Neige, and the beautiful Teas and Hybrid Teas that are 

 never out of blossom are taking their places. 



But it is not in the rose plot only that home gardens 

 are behind the times. One sees house walls that are 

 exposed to the sunshine from dawn until dusk smothered 

 with Ivy and close-leaved creepers, and the little border 

 at the foot of them a mass of London Pride, or some 

 other ubiquitous plant that will thrive even better in 

 the shade where little else will grow. It is enough some- 

 times to make the gods weep when one thinks of the many 

 exquisite flowers and fruit that might be grown there 

 flowers and fruit, too, that can be grown nowhere else. 

 Arches and arbours, against which languish derelict Gloire 

 de Dijon, Crimson Rambler, or Souvenir de la Malmaison, 

 are perhaps less common than they used to be since 

 the advent of so many glorious climbing roses ; but 



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