Decembeh, 1910 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



221 



and then continue on the lawn side of 

 the latter, making a great, big new border 

 there, where the grass was coarse and 

 flowers would really look better. So 

 he did swing around, turning over the turf 

 for a space twenty-five feet long and 

 about eighteen feet in width. Next was 

 to come the man with the wheel-harrow. 

 But he did not come that Saturday; nor did 

 he come the next Saturday. By another 

 Saturday something had to be done; the 

 early vegetables could not wait on a 

 batch of flowers that at best were only 

 surplus. 



Time, muscle and a good fork would 

 have made that border look like something. 

 After doing one square yard in a manner 

 that would satisfy even a New England 

 conscience, however, I concluded that the 

 fork had the time and muscle, not I; and 

 it refused point blank to work without 

 my active cooperation. It was then that 

 I thought of the iron rake. The turf 

 being all bottom side up, said I to myself, 

 "there you'll lie and go the way of all turf 

 that is buried according to rule." So with 

 the rake, and occasional help on the part 

 of the fork, I did the shameful thing of 

 merely diverting some of the dirt from the 

 tops of my mountain ridges into my valleys. 

 I can not say that a level plain resulted, 

 but with that combing over the border 

 was "made." The soil did not look 

 as if it needed any fertflizer, so none 

 it got. 



Into this border that was about every- 

 thing that it should not be the plants that 

 had been thriving in the vegetable garden 

 were summarily dumped; they had to be 

 in the case of a man whose gardening work 

 is concentrated in one day a week. North 

 and south, twenty-five sturdy hollyhocks 

 were planted in a loose, straggling group 

 across the sunnier end of the bed and then, 

 in several places, patches of the sweet 

 William, a glorious blood red. The Canter- 

 bury bells and foxgloves, also a lot of 

 biennial pinks, were similarly disposed 

 and, finally, all the odds and ends, which 

 included a small groundsel tree from Long 

 Island and a stonecrop from Richmond, 

 Virginia, that had both wintered safely, 

 were transferred their few feet to the 

 northward. 



This much accomplished, the border 

 was sort of good to look upon, even if in 

 the making there was infinite gardening 

 impropriety. It was at any rate another 

 border to fuss over, and, in filling up 

 the many bare spaces, there was plenty 

 of diversion ahead of a rather agreeable 

 sort. 



What did go into those bare spaces as 

 the season added one week's opportunity 

 to another would make a long story. Of 

 rose acacia, which I had been wanting 

 for three years; the straw-colored flower- 

 de-luce and some of the old-fashioned 

 roses that I also lacked; Queen of the 

 meadow, Bible leaf, widow's tears and 



more kinds of artemisias, old gardens gave 

 roe with neighborly generosity. Other 

 friends came forward with such "new- 

 fangled" things as rehmannia, Cocquelicot 

 phlox, the beautiful f)hloxovata, two kinds 

 of veronica, the Whirlwind variety of Japa- 

 nese anemone and Salvia pralensis. P'rom 

 my own, and other people's seed beds, were 

 brought annuals — the castor oil bean, 

 Prince's feather, mourning bride, snap- 

 dragon, love-in-a-mist, Johnny-jump-up, 

 kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate, zinnia, ragged 

 sailor and Salvia coccinea — and from 

 the wild, Michaelmas daisies and other 

 worthy asters, cardinal flower, burnet 

 and cleone. And so on; for this by 

 no means ends the catalogue of what 

 went into a border that ought to 

 have been "thought out," but just 

 was not. 



I should not have cared to have Miss 

 Jekyll pass judgment on it, but it developed 

 some glorious masses of color, even if 

 they, too, were not according to rule, and 

 it was good fun as sheer recreation. More- 

 over, on the whole it was easier to care 

 for than the rough part of the lawn that 

 it replaced. So far as money goes, it 

 did not cost a "red cent" — the plowing 

 was thrown in — if I except the purchased 

 primulas and aubrietia that I planted 

 there because I had no room for them 

 elsewhere. The moral of which woifld 

 seem to be that poor gardening is better 

 than none at all. 



Rough-and-tiunble gardening is better ttian none at all. and by planting hardy flowers a successfiil border can be made once for all 



