12 FLOWER GARDENING 
soft and pretty and there are the still softer tones 
of lavender and rosemary—herbs that unfor- 
tunately are very tender in the North. And some 
of the other subdued hues, such as the red of the 
flower heads of the burnet and the greenish yel- 
lows of the fennel and dill umbrellas, are grateful 
to the eye. Then there are the little golden but- 
tons of the tansy, which should be in every herb 
garden because the fresh leaves laid on the pantry 
shelves will keep black ants away. 
In the Dark Ages the monks had medicinal 
gardens that were agreeable to walk in, aside from 
their primary reason for being. A medicinal gar- 
den nowadays would scarcely sound right except- 
ing as a reserved space in a botanic garden. Yet 
the garden of simples, which is the same thing, 
is a too-cherished memory of an age when life 
was less complicated to be wholly neglected where 
there is room for it as a special retreat. There 
would be no obligation, even on the part of a New 
England conscience, to go “‘simpling” in it; the 
flowers properly entering into it would make it a 
gay enough place in which to ramble for the sheer 
joy of beholding. Any of the “‘worts,” which are 
legion, may go into it, and there will be blossoms 
from the coltsfoot of March to the monkshood of 
October. 
The rock garden, fairly common abroad but 
rare here, is in the narrow sense of alpine an en- 
deavor to make the plants of the high mountains 
at home by approximating natural conditions, 
