1 8 AN ISLAND GARDEN 



Peas. From this time till the second week in 

 May, when one may venture to transplant into 

 the garden, the boxes containing the myriads of 

 seedlings must be carefully watched and tended, 

 put out of doors on piazza roofs and balcony 

 'ih rough the days and taken in again at night, 

 solicitously protected from too hot suns and too 

 rough winds, too heavy rains or too low a tem- 

 perature, they require continual care. But it is 

 joy to give them all they need, and pleasure in- 

 deed to watch their vigorous growth. Meanwhile 

 there is much delightful work to be done in mak- 

 ing the small garden plot ready. This little island 

 garden of mine is so small that the amount of 

 pure delight it gives in the course of a summer 

 is something hardly to be credited. It lies along 

 the edge of a piazza forty or fifty feet long, slop- 

 ing to the south, not more than fifteen feet wide, 

 sheltered from the north winds and open to the 

 sun. The whole piazza is thickly draped with 

 vines, Hops, Honeysuckles, blue and white Clem- 

 atis, Cinnamon Vine, Mina Lobata, Wistaria, 

 Nasturtiums, Morning-glories, Japanese Hops, 

 Woodbine, and the beautiful and picturesque 

 Wild Cucumber (Echinocystus Lobata), which in 

 July nearly smothers everything else and clothes 

 itself in a veil of filmy white flowers in loose clus- 

 ters, fragrant, but never too sweet, always refresh- 

 ing and exquisite. The vines make a grateful 

 green shade, doubly delightful for that there are 

 no trees on my island, and the shade is most wel- 

 come in the wide brilliancy of sea and sky. 



In the first week of April the ground is spaded 



