160 MY GROWING GARDEN 



glow, Spiroea Van Houttei and a scant half-dozen 

 similar excellent but over-used shrubs. 



What I am preaching now is planting for an 

 effect to suit the particular case at any time of 

 year, that effect to be what the planter himself — 

 or usually herself — ^individually believes to be the 

 best. And I preach again that this effect shaH not 

 be a sheer imitation, sought for because seen and 

 liked somewhere else under totally different con- 

 ditions. I have in mind an example, where the 

 garden man — or woman, I think — had traveled 

 considerably, and seen much, but had not sorted 

 up with any particular care the impressions 

 received. One thing seen, admired and desired was 

 a rose-covered pergola; wherefore a brick pergola 

 was promptly built in the center of a flat open 

 space, at some distance from the pretentious 

 house and between two streets. It simply rose 

 out of the ground, leading nowhere, connecting 

 with nothing, and, even after the roses grew, 

 seeming purposeless. True, chairs were placed in 

 the center of the affair, but I never saw the time 

 when my friends had the "nerve" to sit in those 

 chairs! It would have been Uke going into a 

 "grand-stand" for a pageant, minus the pageant. 

 The whole effect was summarized by an acute 

 friend, who said, "Isn't it painful?" 



