GARDEN OF A COMMUTER'S WIFE 123 



without walking through the outer bed. Four grace- 

 ful wing-shaped beds filled the corners of the grass 

 plot, which by actual measurement proved to be 

 forty feet square. This plateau was on three sides 

 enough higher than the surrounding ground to allow 

 an arbitrary grass slope of two feet, with a couple of 

 steps where the long walk joined it. 



Without suggesting what plants should be used, 

 that is to be settled on some dreary day in midwinter 

 when the first seed catalogue appears, bringing its 

 tantalizing mirage of possibilities, Evan washed 

 in a colour scheme that he knew would satisfy my 

 rather savage taste, and make this formal bit a 

 blaze of light without the aid of a single "foliage 

 plant." For it is really astonishing how few colours 

 are inharmonious when they are profusely massed 

 and have green for a background. 



One thing we decided about my Garden of the 

 Sun, as Evan calls this formal bit, because it stands 

 out in the open entirely without shelter. It is to 

 contain only the perishable summer flowers, really 

 flowers of the sun, and fit companions of the sun- 

 dial. Gorgeous blossoms that come into being in 

 June after the hardy roses have vanished, and glow 

 and blaze until they fairly bloom themselves to death, 

 before the frost touches them. 



