2 TOWN AND WINDOW GARDENING 



heart is gay with flowers. They strew our parks and open 

 spaces, they fill the cheerful window-box and seed-sown 

 area, and make the cold grey balcony to blossom as the 

 rose ; even where London's traffic roars the loudest, one 

 lights upon the pathetic back-yard garden, hemmed in by 

 church and factory walls, the high-hung garden of the 

 roof and parapet, the little beau-pot of the window-sill, 

 the poetic window-plant, that shares its owner's only 

 living-room, — everywhere flowers, flowers, for rich and 

 poor, especially for the rich. 



" There's never a delicate nursling of the year, 

 But our huge London hails it, and delights 

 To wear it on her heart or at her ear, 



Her days to colour and make sweet her nights/' 



Buying flowers is easy enough, it is the growing of 

 them in big towns that is so diflBcult ; but the struggle is 

 not a hopeless one, there is much that may encourage. 

 When we hear of what others have done, still more, when 

 we have seen their successes for ourselves, despair gives 

 way to animation and activity. 



No one will deny for a moment that there is more 

 real joy to be felt over one plant that we have grown for 

 ourselves than over ninety and nine bought ones ; and this 

 is not only because attending to its needs has made us 

 love the flower as we love children and other pets and 

 dear dependents — there is another reason. In shop- 

 flowers the method of growth (one of a plant's greatest 

 beauties) is a charm left out. Sweet Peas, for instance ; 

 we buy them squeezed up in tight bunches, all pink ones 

 massed together, or all white or purple. Where is the 

 grace of the clinging tendril, the tender poising of the 

 dainty blooms ? 



I have seen these beauties where Sweet Peas were 

 blowing and growing in the depths of a London area 

 along with white Pinks, Candytuft, and the gold-flowered 



