116 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens 
earth and sky—how the morning has sped away without a 
thought or care of fleeting hours and neglected duties! What 
a glorious waste of time weeding is! I only truly live when un- 
conscious of existence. 
I have come to know my weakness, and unless prepared to 
give up my whole morning, I go no farther than the doorstep; 
and even here I dare not linger long, so great is the entice- 
ment. It is this affectionate attention that tells in a garden. 
Any brief neglect shows itself in decay and disorder, especially 
if the season be too wet or too dry. One must not only care 
for the living, but provide for the dead, and the friendly per- 
sistent weeds ever draw me forth and spur me on to duty. 
To my mind the worst offenders are the wantons that cross- 
fertilize with anything. From their choicest selected stock 
will spring mongrel types of the most aggravating colors. 
Among this debased class I name the sweet-william, colum- 
bine, the hollyhock, the peony poppy (sometimes). I well 
recall the care and two years’ nurture I gave the seeds of a 
very beautiful cardinal red sweet-william. The third year it 
had reached the blooming period, and had been set out every- 
where to replace a deep rose pink variety. To my disgust, 
the new plants proved every coloring known in sweet-william’s 
calendar save pure red. Some wore prison stripes, some had 
ted eyes, some were “straked and pied”; since then sweet 
willie has played me every sort of trick until I learned to snare 
him by taking a single plant that is particularly beautiful, and 
propagating by division of the root. I have even failed in this, 
for a plant singled out for its beauty, should be cut back the 
moment it breaks into bloom so as to throw its whole life into 
the root; and twice I have lost a very lovely tone of warm old 
rose, because I loved the bloom too well to cut it off, and the 
plant exhausted itself in flowering and died. One has to 
practice much self-denial in gardening. 
