21 GARDENING FOR WOMEN 



towns, watering places, and golfing centres we 

 find tliem too. Each house has a garden, which 

 is not necessarily large enough to supply the 

 family with vegetables, but usually a small, level 

 lawn is contrived for tennis or croquet ; and a 

 small portion near the road is kept gay with flowers. 

 It is amusing, as we walk along, to compare taste 

 in gardening at Clarence House with that dis- 

 played next door at Highclere Villa ; to note how 

 preferable is the natural arrangement of well- 

 grown tea-roses in one, to the star-shaped beds of 

 stiff geraniums in another. 



Who looks after these small gardens ? Often 

 an uneducated working man, whose chief idea is 

 to keep them tidy. This is commendable, but 

 tidiness is not the only pleasurable feature of a 

 garden. To plan successful combinations of colour 

 really brings happiness, to have means of tending 

 little bits of tender, precious plants, gifts of friends, 

 is what contents us. It would help many owners 

 of such gardens to hand them over to the care 

 of a lady. The size of the piece of ground is not 

 too much for her to look after, the work is not 

 arduous. In fact, she can limit her work to 

 a given number of days a week, or even hall 

 days. 



This kind of jobbing gardening, although well 

 paid, would only content those who are obliged 



