138 THE HEART OF A GARDEN 
rate, I am going to try it. This month I sow sweet- 
peas, and trust to fortune that the winter bite not too 
keenly. The autumn-sown peas come earlier into 
flower and bloom more freely, speeding the parting 
tulips at the back of May. No flower is sweeter than 
the sweet sweet-pea, and I grow innumerable varieties 
in rows, in groups, and in phalanxes wherever the sun 
shines upon an idle spot in my garden. 
Fashions in flowers come and go, like fashions in 
dress and games and books, and as a rule one is wise to 
pay little heed to these flitting fancies: yet the practice 
of naturalising flowers in grass, introduced a good many 
years since, has justified itself, and has taken its rightful 
place among the regular operations of the garden. I 
conduct this part of my work upon a scale not over¬ 
liberal. 
The wild garden in all its glory of wildness is for 
those with ample spaces, wide meadows bordering upon 
the park, and, maybe, a wandering, gurgling stream. 
What cannot be accomplished with such materials ? 
Yet even those whose ambition is more or less confined 
within the shelter of their walled garden and its 
sequestered lawns can do much to decorate their 
narrower demesne. I plant some thousands of crocuses 
—white, lilac-striped, purple, and yellow—in the lawn 
before my windows. It is best to take up the turf 
bodily, and, having prepared the soil, put in the bulbs, 
and then re-cover and roll. The process will improve 
the turf, if anything, and will offer a wonderful field of 
flower in earliest spring. If massed, I find that the 
scoundrelly sparrows shrink somewhat from interfering 
