SUNDOWN 
*37 
coming year I am shifting to the eastern boundary of 
my orchard a phalanx of young sycamores to break the 
power of the winds. Sycamores seed freely, are easily 
founded in the earth, and grow faster than almost any 
tree I know. To which add that they are mightily 
handsome in shape and leaf, and you will have all the 
advantages of the sycamore before you. Remember, 
however, that it is greedy, avid of room, and elbows 
aside more modest neighbours. Nevertheless I like the 
sycamore as I like few trees. It is not a pig, like the 
elder, and it repays hospitality with generous gratitude, 
just as, on the other hand, in London at least, the chest¬ 
nut begrudges and denies us. Her leaves fall, in the 
town, in midsummer, and by the end of September the 
birds may flit through bare sticks. I am changing, also, 
the scheme of some lawn-beds. These have been until 
now given over to early tulips, and so have had to be 
restocked in June with late annuals or the usual 
“ bedding-out ” plants. But I have boldly plunged 
into a resolution, which is to plant with roses and 
underplant with narcissus, Trumpet and Star, and the 
incomparable Orange and Sulphur Phoenix. I have 
great faith in underplanting, for the blooms are gone 
and the bulbs ripened or ever the rose-bushes fill with 
leaf. A few plots I have reserved for a different destiny. 
They are to be planted heavily with early tulips in 
white and yellow mixtures, and white and nankeen or 
buff; and for successors I shall interplant Spanish and 
English iris in variety, followed by the early gladioli, 
and closing the season with the gandavensis hybrids. 
It is venturesome, but not, I think, too bold. At any 
