CHAPTER XXVI 



SOME HOMELY FLOWERS 



My regret is never keener than when I am filled with ad- 

 miration for someone else's Wallflowers and reflect that I have 

 none at home. 



IT is not easy to define what is meant by homely flowers 

 save that they must be familiar sorts and favourites, 

 easily grown, prodigal of bloom, useful for cutting, and 

 chiefly fragrant. A garden that can grow such flowers 

 as these never lacks appeal ; it cannot fail to charm. 

 High among homely flowers I should place the Ten- 

 week Stock. It is true that there are plenty of flowers 

 better suited to cutting, but it is far too pleasant to pass 

 by. While double flowers generally have not the charm of 

 single ones, the reverse holds good with Stocks. In fact, 

 the one drawback in growing them is that the singles 

 are apt to spoil the appearance of the whole planting, 

 be it bed, border, or little plot. But there is the con- 

 solation that, providing one obtains good seed (and the 

 wise gardener never buys seed solely because it is cheap), 

 about 90 per cent, of the blooms will be double. I am 

 afraid I am not sufficiently skilled to distinguish a single 

 Stock from a double one until they bloom, but this I 

 M 177 



