CHAPTER X 
WHY A HARDY GARDEN IS BEST 
TIME was when most American flower gardens 
were hardy. That was still the rule in grand- 
mother’s day—the grandmother, say, of those who 
now are getting toward middle life. 
Grandmother knew the intrinsic value of per- 
manence in the garden; she loved plants that stayed 
by her, that endured with her the rigors of the 
winter and woke up smiling in the spring. And 
she knew full well that, with all else that she 
had to do from the rising of the sun until long 
past the going down thereof, such plants must 
be her main reliance because they represented the 
minimum of labor. 
Came mother. She was rather inclined to stick 
up her nose at grandmother’s garden. Like some 
of the fine old furniture, it was not quite good 
enough for the new day and generation. So many 
a beautiful garden that had been treasured for 
years by some one now gone to her last account 
perished from lack of care, and lack of thought, 
by a more or less slow process of petering out. 
They died hard, not a few of them; here and 
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