MY GARDEN 
By Eden Phillpotts 
T he conflict between natural and formal 
gardens does not rage so fiercely as of 
yore—perhaps because everybody has settled 
it to their own liking. The ideal solution is, 
of course, to have both; but since an average 
suburban amateur must plan his achieve¬ 
ments with sharp regard to space, he should 
make a choice and stick to it. That is my 
own case, though I live in the country, and 
I decided for a formal garden ; first, because 
I liked it best; secondly, because to plan 
glades, vistas, lakes, woodland dingles and 
waterfalls in an acre of ground is no better 
than a fool’s trick. Beauty on a generous 
scale was impossible for me, yet with hard 
work and weather sometimes rising to the 
dignity of climate, a measure of charm has 
been attained. There is promise rather than 
performance. Last winter I spent some time 
in a garden of one hundred acres on the 
shores of the Mediterranean. About forty 
gardeners are occupied there ceaselessly, and 
among the accessories are a museum and a 
professional curator. That garden is a dream 
of exquisite beauty, and contains things only 
known to exist there in the whole world. 
They probably do survive elsewhere also ; 
but their habitat is forgotten. People pay 
pilgrimages from Kew, and worship in that 
garden and return. One bank of anemones 
costs a hundred pounds a year to keep in 
perfection. That show alone would fill my 
garden and run over. Yet, when I came 
back to my patch, I was quite pleased to see 
it again. Because the thing you have made 
yourself has always its own charm—for you. 
There are seven hundred sorts of plants in 
my garden, and of some I have many species. 
When the genera exceed a thousand, the fun 
ought to begin, and “severe fighting may be 
expected,” as the war correspondents say. 
Still it is a garden, not a nursery. I have a 
nursery also, where I make my experiments, 
and flower new plants, and compare them 
with the catalogued descriptions of them, and 
get a great deal of innocent fun in this way 
alone. 
There are practical tests by which you may 
know if you are really a gardener at heart, 
or merely a common man, who thinks that 
he is a gardener. What, for instance, is your 
view of a nurseryman’s annual autumn or 
spring list ? Do you let these things seduce 
you twice every year ? Do you linger over 
them when you should be reading Shake¬ 
speare or improving yourself in other ways? 
Do you make out long catalogues of plants 
and pretend to yourself that you are only 
doing it for a joke ; and then pop your list 
into the post, and presently, when a box 
comes and there is half-a-crown to pay, de¬ 
clare that you had forgotten all about it ? If 
you do these things, you may consider your¬ 
self a gardener, and I shake your hand. 
Nurserymen’s catalogues ought to grow upon 
a young gardener like drink. He must, of 
course, begin by believing every word. Only 
bitter personal experiences extending over 
many years should shake him. 1 myself 
still have faith in nearly everything but the 
pictures of vegetables. I will not accept the 
illustrations of peas, and French beans, and 
melons. I have proved that most of the 
other things can be produced with an effort 
and a little management of the photographic 
apparatus; but I have never yet grown a 
green pea-pod a foot long with thirty peas 
the size of cherries in it, and I never expect 
to do so. 
A professional nurseryman is always above 
petty repartee, and, when chronicling failures, 
I have been met in a high spirit of sympathy 
combined with allusions to new and hopeful 
strains of vegetables likely to meet my re¬ 
quirements. 
Once a grower sent me a family of slugs 
with a parcel of plants, and though one ap¬ 
preciates the little attentions and gifts that 
are a matter of every-day generosity with the 
larger-minded professionals, yet who would 
add a slug to his collection ? Mine, at any 
rate, is complete, and I can put most varieties 
on the market at rates that would surprise 
you. Once a slug came to me with aquatic 
60 
Copyright , IQ04, —Henry T. Coates Co. 
