30ra APRIL. 



WE HAVE had a fortnight of perfect weather for the gardener, 

 smalt rains followed by day after day of brilliant sunshine with 

 no wind stirring. This is a country of high winds. The air is 

 very seldom still ; all summer the south-easter is just round the 

 corner ready to fall upon us, and winter comes in with raging 

 south-westers ; but now we have the perfect time between. 

 The garden, exhausted with summer's heat, takes time to re- 

 cover. A great silence prevails, a still waiting for the struggles 

 to come. Exhausting, some people call it, but the gardener 

 loses not a moment. The ground is dug and raked to a fine 

 tilth, and out he goes, seed packet in hand ; it is a case of now 

 or never with those fluffy seeds of gazanias, arctotis and felicias. 

 It is the time for sowing bulb seeds too. Gladiolus can only 

 be sown when there is no wind, and I have all the beautiful 

 little gladiolus species to sow. How I revel in seed sowing ! 

 I suppose every gardener does ; as the long drills are filled in 

 I see them all in flower. Not a seed fails, no grub triumphs, 

 no mole destroys. Beauty is indestructible, and if to the onlooker 

 our gardens are sometimes of little worth who shall evaluate 

 what they give to the minds of those who love them ? 



The first proteas are out. Lovely bushes of P. neriifolia are 

 covered with the goblet-shaped blooms of silvery white tipped 

 with black fur. I have the pink form of this one, too, and it 

 is a lovely soft pink. But the long-tailed sugar-birds (Promerops 

 caffer) treat them very badly ; they sit on the edge of the blooms 

 and dig their long beaks deep into the flowers for honey, 

 but they are too big for this game and they damage the 

 blossoms. Their weight spoils the symmetry of the cup by 

 bending it down on one side or forcing it open, yet one could 

 never drive them off. They have more right to the flowers 

 than we have, and they pay for what they take by carrying out 

 the work of pollination. 



In the bulb beds Lachenalia rubida is already in bloom. It 

 comes with the first rains ; unfortunately it is too small to be of 

 use commercially, but the colour is delightful. 



Gladiolus psitt acinus var. Hookeri is out, its brilliant scarlet 



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