Where the main garden gives on the grassy slope of the orchard a little fan-shaped space of brick lies beneath the 
shelter of two flanking apple trees. Here, in spring, daffodils and tulips, puschkinias and dwarf iris help to make gay 
one of those garden meeting spots of which one loves to dream on winter evenings 
RANDOM NOTES IN MY GARDEN 
Wherein Are Recorded Some of the Little Things that Count in Building Up the Garden 
Scheme, and the Large Pleasures They Afford 
MRS. FRANCIS KING 
T O the eye of a gardener, snow is no 
winding sheet, none of the covering of 
death; it is the warm wrapping mantle 
of beauty, asleep. Beneath the whiteness lie 
endless radiances of color, wonders untold in 
flower, plant, tree. How can those who do 
not garden, who have no part nor lot in the 
great fraternity, who watch the changing year 
as it affects earth and its growth, how can 
those keep warm their hearts in winter? They 
are as those who have no 
hope. A winter day of the 
coldest may glow and shine 
with thoughts of summer, 
but always provision must 
have been made for the 
summer by burying the 
bulbs, by covering the ro¬ 
settes of the Canterbury bell 
or the cut stalks which mark 
the delphinium root’s por¬ 
tion of the garden. These 
things properly accom¬ 
plished, the fancy may hap¬ 
pily dwell in winter upon 
the rosy tulip, the golden 
daffodil, the campanula’s 
full round bells and upon 
“Larkspur lifting turquoise 
spires 
Bluer than the sorcerer’s 
fires—” 
And then the first signs of spring, those 
days in mid-January when daylight lasts an 
hour longer than in December; that blue of 
the January sky which hints intangibly of 
bluer skies to come; the warmer sun. On 
such days I venture forth into a snow-covered 
garden, look carefully over shrubs and trees 
here and there, scrape the bark of a rose or 
thorn, hoping to find beneath that faithful 
strip of green, the proof of life and strength. 
So walking, I come to a spot which, almost 
hidden by snow, is a source of warm delight; 
and it is only the mind that makes it so, the 
memory and the imagination. 
On a hot August day of last year, I sud¬ 
denly realized that a pair of Cox’s Orange 
Pippin trees flanking the entrance of the main 
garden to the grassy slopes of the orchard 
were really grown. They cast full-grown 
shadows. At once chairs were brought, and 
a garden tea table, and the 
true enjoyment of those trees 
began. Two garden benches 
then were set along the 
edges of the gravel walk, 
just within the garden, and 
also beneath the pippin’s 
shade. The popularity of 
this sitting place was at 
once established. Where 
the two chairs stood just 
outside the garden, thev 
were backed by tall lilacs 
growing almost to the height 
of the young apples, by 
Spirea arguta and by a few 
deutzias, well grown. 
But now the frequent oc¬ 
cupation of those chairs be¬ 
gan to leave its mark upon 
the grass, worn spots ap- 
(Continued on page 62) 
In the shadow beneath shrubs, and overtopped by Ariadne narcissus, May finds the 
blue blossoms of mertensias. Scarcely eight inches high, but they gleam like sap¬ 
phires, each flower panicle beautifully rich in color and effect 
