OCTOBER 183 



October 8th. — I have been lately on the East Coast. 

 One cannot help being amused to find that gardening is 

 so like life, each one has his own difficulties. I was 

 suggesting to my friend to plant her Violets in leaf- 

 mould, when she said : ' Why, we have not a single 

 leaf. The few there are on the dwarf trees blow away 

 into space.' Oh ! what a fight the poor plants have 

 with the salt-laden winds ! But some things thrive and 

 flourish by the sea as they do nowhere else. I think the 

 sunk Dutch gardens, before described, will be found most 

 useful by the seaside. 



October Uth. — It is a very good plan, when you want 

 to cut a new bed or alter the shape of an old one, to 

 shuffle along the wet dewy grass on an October morning 

 — and this leaves a mark which enables you very well to 

 judge of size, shape, and proportion — before you begin to 

 cut your beds out. I am taking up and replanting — in 

 the way before described of massing aU the plants of 

 one colour together — my long herbaceous borders. These 

 borders run right across what was once a fair-sized lawn, 

 and the principle of the garden is to have it all beds and 

 low-growing shrubs, except the pathsj which are turf ; 

 the main paths are left gravelled for the sake of dryness 

 in bad weather. I only replant the herbaceous borders 

 every four or five years, mulching them well every 

 winter; and even then it is best only to replant them 

 partially, as certain fine plants are much injured, if not 

 killed, by moving at all, and these plants remain as 

 landmarks both as regards height and colour for the 

 replanting of the borders. Keeping colours together and 

 some empty spaces for annuals or filling up in spring or 

 summer out of the reserve garden, makes it much easier 

 to prevent the borders looking dull and shabby at any 

 time during the summer months. 



The large square beds are planted now with all kinds 



