MY GARDEN OF DREAMS 



aliens from the reserve border, introduced, ready-made, 

 as it were, for their fleeting display of gaudy bloom. 

 These are but courtesy gardens mere groups of plants, 

 wanting in harmony, and without charm. A real garden 

 is one in which the plants have grown from babyhood to 

 flowerhood, and whose fragrance comes like a stray 

 breeze from a tender past. 



In the making of a garden Time plays an all-important 

 part, touching crude colours to restful tones, and painting 

 with its own inimitable brush of verdant moss and crested 

 lichen. In a garden grown old under the fostering care 

 of Time, the grassy ways are soft like velvet to the tread, 

 the trees full grown, and giving welcome shade : 



" Shelter where feeble feet 



Might linger long or wander slow 

 And deem decadence sweet." 



A garden should be, as it were, a book of flowers ; every 

 plant should have its story, each flower a page. It must 

 be alive, full of the joy of sweet companionship comrade 

 and friend to whom one may turn for solace in time of 

 sorrow, for right sympathy in time of joy. There should 

 be flowers linked inseparably with far-off days standing 

 as joyous landmarks on the path of Life. There would 

 necessarily be others calling to mind days of sadness 

 upon which it is good sometimes to dwell when the 

 sharp sword of grief has lost its edge on the soothing 

 shield of Time, for, dimmed by swift-flown years, poignant 

 thoughts may come as hallowed memories, at evening 



103 



