April, IQ14 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
275 
who had been leaning on his spade, straightened his cramped 
back, with a groan. I heartlessly laughed, as I realized that one 
could hardly call this a holiday for him. Before many months 
our beloved evergreens had shown kinship to the chameleon, for 
the emerald green had turned to brown. The hemlocks gradually 
died down till only feathers of green, showed 
around the roots. “I am going to cut off all 
.but the green,” I said. The onlookers smiled 
condescendingly. “Less trouble than to dig 
them up,” said someone. “Wait and see, my 
instinct says they will live,' and they did. 
After this drastic pruning, the roots grubbed 
with fresh energy to do the supporting. That 
.season we ordered a fresh supply, and a very 
competent man did the planting. To be pre¬ 
pared, I had also studied up the matter, hie 
dug large holes and threw in plenty of top 
soil; then, standing the tree up. he spread the 
roots, gradually throwing in earth, and tapped 
about them with a flat-bottomed pole. We did 
not fill the hole entirely, but threw in several 
buckets of water, and the next morning cov¬ 
ered it level with the grass. Needless to say, 
these evergreens grew speedily. When my 
evergreens were one-season old I wished to 
.add to their number. The only objection to 
gratifying my desire was the fact that we re¬ 
turned to our home late in June, after the 
planting season. A short distance away from 
our place stood a line of young Scotch pines 
seven feet high, which looked verv tempting. 
1 was able to buy them from our neighbor, 
and decided that it would be worth while to 
attempt the transplanting. As the ground had 
been saturated by a three-days’ rain, it was 
comparatively easy to dig them up with a good 
ball of earth about the roots. This being our 
first experience of the kind caused us to take 
-more than ordinary care. We followed all the 
professional tactics, protecting the roots from the sun and wind, 
wrapping the ball of earth in burlap, and when safely in the hole, 
drowning the roots in water. The next day I observed with sor¬ 
row all the furry fingers pointing down, but they merely wished to 
make the one sensation of their lives, as the following evening 
these strenuous finger shoots were all pointing skyward again. 1 
then believed what a gardener once told me: "You sure can plant 
annything anny toime, if ye have any sinse.” The attitude of 
gardeners towards the object of their labors varies as widely as 
that of parents toward their children. One class always taking 
for granted, but never quite satisfied with the attentions bestowed 
upon them by their children. Other parents, imbued with the 
idea that, having 
taken upon them¬ 
selves the respon¬ 
sibility of new 
lives, feel delight¬ 
edly grateful if 
their children 
crown them with 
love and success. 
After a fall plant¬ 
ing, the months 
seem long before 
the spring shows 
The flowered path invites one into the woodland of oak ^he 1 esult foi bet- 
and maple ter or for worse. 
No parent could have been more pleased over the awarding of a 
diploma to a child than was I when all my shrubs responded to 
the touch of spring. 
My place must have a feathery boundary, and perish the 
thought of the stiff privet hedge, so our landscape architect 
planned a hedge of flowering 
shrubs. Day after day in the 
early fall I looked at the odd 
shapes drawn on my plan, 
puzzled out the list of num¬ 
bers and names, and finally 
arrived at the amount of 
shrubs needed of the different 
varieties. Then came the 
search in catalogues for 
prices and sizes, and finally a 
comparison of the selected list 
with the state of our financial 
affairs. It was no easy matter 
to make my checkerboard 
square satisfactorily. I was, 
fortunately, only able to order 
two-thirds of each variety, as 
otherwise they would have 
been too thickly planted in the 
allotted spaces. After some in¬ 
dustrious consultation of the 
cryptic figures and symbols on 
the plan, I was able to visual¬ 
ize the results and inject my 
own ideas, which were so 
vague and indefinite before. 
Forsythia fortunes is the 
golden bell which rings in the 
early spring. Dogwood then 
begins to bloom, while next in 
turn comes the creamy vibur¬ 
num. Scarcely have these 
flowers faded when the spi- 
rea, appropriately called bridal wreath, is in its glory. When 
these snowy petals have fallen the weigelia displays flowers of 
shaded, pink bloom to comfort your loss. Dainty, white deutzia, 
syringia and masses of white Hydrangea paniculata follow in 
turn. All through the spring and early summer this flowering 
hedge brings delight to all who pass. 
At eighteen, when pleasure and lack of care seem the all-im¬ 
portant points in life, I watched with amused tolerance my mother, 
not only tending her flowers, but fairly slaving over them in mid¬ 
summer madness. Occasionally, in an unsuppressed moment of 
enthusiasm, when she forgot that my thoughts were completely 
absorbed by tournaments and gayety, she would call: "Oh, do 
come into the garden for just a minute, and see my wonderful 
flowers,” and, having dragged me reluctantly down the steps, she 
pointed out to my unseeing eyes the wonders of her Italian gar¬ 
den. “Why, mother,” I would vaguely reply, “flowers are nice 
to have around the house, but I cannot imagine becoming so much 
interested in them that I could toil out here in the blazing sun. 
With you, gardening is like eating nuts; when you once start, you 
cannot stop.” "Oh, child," she laughed, "wait until you have your 
own home, and have no flowers about you; then we will see how 
you feel about them;” and I wondered if I too would be drawn 
into the spell of the mystery of living things. It was only a few 
years after that, I wrote a pleading letter to the flower magician : 
“1 must have flowers around my house, mother; when shall I get; 
when shall I put them in, and how ?” In response to my note I 
received a great box containing the overflowing offsprings of her 
My flowers were modest in their demands, and for one whole 
summer the yellow iris entertained us with their sunny 
noddings 
