If, after a summer of disappointments, your faith in nature, in- 
cluding human nature, wanes, do a little fall-planting. 
There is nothing so drab, so ugly, so misshapen, so hopeless as a 
mertensia root, but when pink- tipped buds open into bluest flowers on 
sturdy green stems beautifully set with leaves, that dead husk 
proves its inner beauty. 
Have you ever planted thread-like roots of wood anenomes, so 
tiny that it seems a waste of time to stick them carelessly into the 
ground? But earlier, even, than great, hulking daffodil bulbs they 
dare to thrust up their lovely, frail flowers. 
Tulip bulbs have always a neat, smug air that inspires a certain 
confidence, but those of hyacinths and narcissi seem too stolid for 
any but utilitarian crops. They give no hint of the color and grace 
and sweet odors stored within. 
The ugly, brown tassels that will one day give forth a tangled, 
white garland of clematis, the miserable, shriveled sticks that flame 
into butterfly weed, the gnarled tangle that grows and blooms an 
opulent peony; they are nothing in autumn, just dull and ugly. 
Is there room for discouragement and faithlessness when each year 
on our own little plots of ground such miracles come to pass? 
Taken from "The Guardian" 
Alexander Pope 
Tuesday, September 29, 17 13 
"I believe it is no wrong observation that persons of genius, and 
those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of nature: 
as such are chiefly sensible that all art consists in the imitation and 
study of nature. On the contrary, people of the common level of 
understanding are principally delighted with little niceties and fantas- 
tical operations of art, and constantly think that finest which is least 
natural. A citizen is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews then he 
entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants, like those of Guildhall. 
I know an eminent cook who beautified his countryseat with a corona- 
tion dinner in greens; where you see the champion flourishing on 
horseback at one end of the table, and the queen in perpetual youth at 
the other. 
"For the benefit of all my loving countrymen of this taste, I shall 
here publish a catalogue of greens to be disposed of by an eminent 
town gardener, who has lately applied to me upon this head. He 
represents that, for the advancement of a politer sort of ornament 
in the villas and gardens adjacent to this great city, and in order 
