The Quest 
For Con¬ 
tinuous 
Bloom 
in the 
Garden 
Conditions 
Peculiar 
to the 
Southwest 
ft A Cycle of 
M' Continuous Bloom 
VWvJA f we could solve the problem of continuous bloom in 
the garden, much of the fascination of gardening 
-sSyili,*' would be dulled, if not absolutely extinguished. It is 
the constant breathless quest, with disappointment and disaster 
here and there, but success ever around the corner, that lures us 
on. To paraphrase Browning, "The gardens we aspire to have and 
have not comfort us,” and there is pure joy in the quest for a 
perfection which constantly eludes us. A gardener, if he lives to 
be ninety, can fold his hands at the end and say, "Here endeth 
the first lesson”, for his hope is to gather Asphodels and Daisies in 
the Elysian Fields where a cycle of continuous bloom will be his 
reward for grubbing and spraying and sweating here. 
Here in the semi-arid Southwest we are agricultural pioneers. 
We have the thrill of experimentation and of adaptation. We 
have peculiar climatic conditions that thwart our exuberant 
hopes in one direction, only to reward them richly in another. A 
wealth of native trees, shrubs, and flowers is at our command and 
we long, perversely, to grow something that will never be any¬ 
thing but a sickly ghost of its robust parent plant. We are like the 
immortal Tartarian who, oblivious of the beauty of the giant 
Plane-trees of his native Provence, was only happy when he could 
exhibit an African Rubber tree in a four-inch pot. The Rubber 
Tree’s normal spread is nearly an acre. 
SHRUBS 
Let us reform and take stock of what is here at our doors. In 
the Southwest there is no month in the year in which some flower 
176 
