Golden State is perpetually keeping up with Flora. You 
never get ahead. You plant a tree today and pick the fruit 
tomorrow. The third day you cut the tree down, because you 
planted two trees w^here only one should grow. Of course if 
you have been here a long time (as long as two years) you 
know better. It is when you are a new-comer, an ignorant 
emigrant from — let us say New York State — that you are 
bewildered. In California w^e learn at once to be modest. 
Humility is in the air. We never let our right hand know what 
our left is doing. While we plant with the one, we pull out 
with the other. We no sooner plant than we prune. To spare 
the knife is to spoil the shape. 
Under such conditions it seems an act of mercy to tell 
prospective gardeners what not to do. Perhaps we shall 
print a primer on planting. A sort of A B C of Don'ts. It 
will begin something like this : 
A. Stands for Alyssum and M for maritimum. Don 't plant 
it. It sprouts like the Biblical grain of mustard. The fowls 
of the air sit in its branches. Even the gophers spare its 
roots. Its seeds are as the sands of the sea for number. You 
will spend your days grubbing it out. Alyssum maritimum 
procumhens (very dwarf) must be sheared before seeding or it 
will inherit your earth. 
B. " Bougainvillea glaha sanderiana^-aolor rich magenta." 
See it in bloom before you plant it. Then if you want it, not 
even Ridgway's chart can harmonize your garden. 
C. Convolvolus Major. Beware the Bindweed! It has no 
glory night or morning in a Calif ornian's eyes. Men go to court 
over its unrestrained seeding. They swear to roots three feet 
deep ; writhing roots that strangle the trees. It is the Devil- 
fish of the land. The perennial C. mauritanicus has all the 
virtues of the family. It is charming in color — lavender-blue 
■ — and graceful in habit. Chrysanthemum frutescens. The white 
I\Iarguerite of our eastern glasshouse. It is useless to say "Don't 
plant it." Everyone succumbs to the thought of growing Mar- 
guerites out-of-doors. You begin with a border along your drive- 
way. You order dozens of cuttings. You mourn because they are 
so small. You water and hoe and watch them grow. For a 
whole week you are entranced with their delicate loveliness. 
Suddenly one morning you realize that something has happened 
to your debutantes in white. The slender maidens are gone. 
In their place is a billowy line of matrons — "fat and forty" — 
great buxom creatures who push aside all gentle garden folk. 
You take stern measures to break that solid front. You use 
the knife. Alas, tomorrow is the same as yesterday. 
Remembering the love of former years, you turn away your 
face. There comes a time when you can no longer endure 
