is already planted in them. The lure of the free-site has conquered 
us and them. 
To the garden lover who knows the years of Nature's patient sav- 
ing, the early failures, the painful development of frail beauty strong 
enough to survive, — the vandalism of these artificial lakes is enough. 
Reaching back and back, through valleys and canyons, their rising 
flood will carry death to trees and all growing things. The gardens 
wiU die over night. But more than our park gardens is threatened. 
These lakes will have variable levels, the water is allowed to accumu- 
late, and is drawn on, and vast swamps and morasses will be devel- 
oped, — unheal thful, unbeautiful, fever-breeding and hideous. Cer- 
tainly there is work here for the Garden Club or America, for 
while the National Parks are the heritage of all of us — ^for those who 
see in them a play-ground, as well as those who see in them a sanc- 
tuary for our plant and animal life, — they belong particularly to those 
who really love the helpless growing things. 
Why Don't You Grow More Flowers in Pots? 
Geraniums and Fuchsias, Palms, Ferns and Cacti are time- 
honored pot-plants. Lately wonderful specimens of Schizanthus, 
Cyclamen, Cinerarias and others have become well-known and very 
beautiful green-house plants but except for pots of forced bulbs the 
amateur gardeners in this country at least, have given little atten- 
tion to pot-grown plants. 
There is nothing that gives more charming accents to gardens 
than picturesque pots set here and there on steps and balustrades 
and there is nothing so easy as to fill these pots with cheap but 
beautiful and effective flowers. 
If you are fortunate enough to have bought in the days before 
the war the very cheap and very graceful terra-cotta pots that Hne 
every garden wall in Naples and southern Italy generally, or if you 
have glazed blue and brown Japanese pots, broad and low with 
flaring tops, you have nothing to do but sow a few seed or plant a 
bulb or two and then wait. If you must depend upon concrete jars, 
which though effective, are clumsy and heavy, you must do your 
planting in ordinary flower pots which can be set into the concrete 
jars as they come into bloom. 
Miss Jekyll advises planting ordinary Morning Glories in twelve- 
inch pots and training them on bamboo stakes into pyramids or 
mounds. This method succeeds quite as well in America as in 
England and nothing could be gayer or prettier particularly if you 
are in the habit of breakfasting out of doors. Nasturtiums are lovely, 
too, festooned from a not too windy balcony. But almost the pretti- 
est and gayest of all easily grown flowers are Portulaca sown thickly 
26 
