14 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens 
turesque background for—just what would be the correct 
foreground did not occur to me at that instant. Sub rosa let 
me confide that the foreground has been and continues to bea 
perplexing problem, for under the shade of the trees the tall 
pink hollyhocks, foxgloves and sweet williams planted there 
have a shifty method of drying up in a time of famine, though 
for two seasons they were beautiful, yet not quite coincident 
with apple blooms; so I have come to regard the old stone 
wall as a permanent background to the general garden, height- 
ened by the green of the apple trees and the bed itself is little 
more than an experiment-station where I test the endurance 
of plants. 
Further:—was there not a fine tangle of grape-vine that 
needed a reconstructing hand to weave it through the boughs 
for a natural arbor over a stone seat that could be built in the 
corner, and a dozen yards more of it used as a covering for the 
rustic fence to be made on the west side? Surely less charms 
than a stone wall, overhanging apple-trees, a grape-vine, a 
possible arbor and a stone seat—later found to be a great 
promoter of rheumatic joints, because it was so shady 
that it never got quite thawed out in summer—have de- 
cided more momentous questions than a garden site. In 
ten minutes I laid out more work than I accomplished in a 
whole year. 
Immediately I set to work with a large sheet of paper in 
front of me for diagrams, my seed catalogues on the right— 
for I had foreclosed and taken possession of all current and 
past issues of the seedsmen—seeds in packages piled up on my 
left, and doubly flanked on every side by seed lists—Cornelia- 
and-her-jewels fashion. These same books, lists and pack- 
ages became my intimate companions. The daily paper 
would be found under them; they strewed tables and chairs; 
they preémpted couch and floor space. I arranged and rear- 
