We have never been able to decide which is cause and which effect, 
but either a love of gardens makes people charming or charming 
people love gardens. What strange anomalies surround our gentle- 
man that he has not discovered this? Can it be that he looks too 
much within? 
We admit that "discontent in a garden" is an apt and telling 
phrase, but we claim that the discontent is divine. 
Gardeners Good and Bad 
-Reprinted from The London Times of March 28, 1916 
Some bad gardeners are so charming that no one could wish them 
better. Nothing thrives in their garden, but they are always happy 
with thinking how beautiful their plants would be if they did thrive. 
Often they grow only new, rare, or difficult plants, and, if some of 
these live through the summer, they are proud of their success. 
They assume that mortality must always be very high in gardens. 
They are like the lady who said that she had had eleven children and 
buried eight of them. No death-rate discourages them; and they are 
not even discouraged by the spectacle of universally ailing vegetation. 
If a plant seems to be dying, they will take it up and divide it and 
replant it elsewhere. Then, when it dies, they make a note that it 
dislikes disturbance. So it does, when moribund; but it also seems to 
dislike whatever treatment they give it. Why, one cannot say; 
for they take pains enough, more pains than most good gardeners; 
probably they are too fond of gardening to succeed with it. 
It is art for art's sake with them; and they are almost glad when a 
plant dies so that they may have the pleasure of planting another in 
its place. Spring is their happiest time, for then they can plant reck- 
lessly and dream of their summer paradise of flowers. The one 
thing they cannot do is to leave their plants alone, and plants do like 
to be left alone some of the time. But one cannot think of these 
gardeners as plant murderers, although they kill so many with kind- 
ness. They are so happy if a plant lives for six months with them; 
they are so ready to give away any plant of theirs which is not obviously 
dying; and so full of generous wonder at the simple successes of other 
gardeners who leave their plants to grow. 
But there are other bad gardeners whom one cannot like, whose 
failures indeed give one pleasure. There is the bad gardener who seems 
to be the greatest of all gardeners until one sees his garden. You 
cannot mention any plant that you have failed to grow but he will 
tell you that it is a weed with him. Often he is very great at names; 
