Pigmy Palm 
(Continued from front page) 
any rate. Very old specimens are 
to be found here and there in the 
Los Angeles area which may be 
as tall as eight or ten feet with 
leaves about four feet long, but 
three or four feet in height with 
two or three foot leaves is much 
nearer the average. The common 
name, 'Pigmy Date Palm,'' seems 
a reasonable designation but 
doesn't begin to do justice to the 
graceful beauty of this glistening 
green, almost fern-like little tree. 
In general appearance our sub- 
ject looks like a common date 
palm might through the wrong end 
of a telescope; P. Roebelenii has 
the same rough trunk, recurving 
fronds and flower clusters as its 
Canary Island cousin but all in 
miniature and with a little extra 
delicacy thrown in. 
Rich soil and partial shade are 
recommended to bring out the 
best in this palm which can be- 
come a_ rewarding specimen 
whether planted directly in the 
garden, tubbed in the patio, or 
potted for the conservatory. It's 
slow rate of growth means that 
plants are somewhat expensive or 
let us rather say, valuable; ado- 
lescent pigmies from $7.50 to 
$15. M.E. 
Tub Hub-Bub 
Evans and Reeves Nurseries 
have added to their already ex- 
tensive stock of plant containers, 
a line of new (and unused), hand- 
made Japanese tubs, of the va- 
riety used to ship foodstuff, and 
often reused as plant containers. 
Ranging in size from five to 13 
inches in diameter, these hand- 
some and popular tubs (useful as 
household containers for mail, 
magazines, waste-paper, etc. as 
well as indoor or outdoor plant 
containers) can be used as they 
come or can be lacquered or 
painted to match any decor. 
(Five-inch, 95 cents; seven-inch, 
$1.75; eight-inch, $2.50; ten-inch, 
Soe) biel Coin aoo 1/5.) 
fee cn 
Having surveyed the gardening scene now for 
many years | am more and more convinced that 
we do not accord to the gardening profession the 
measure of dignity and respect to which it is en- 
titled; not that we should regard some man who 
comes and mows the lawn and clips a hedge as a 
gardener, too often he is a dangerous character 
armed with a pair of lethal shears. But the real 
gardener with a love for plants, a knowledge of 
their habits and requirements, one who has ac- 
quired his art through years of study and obser- 
vation is an entirely different person to the peri- 
patetic lawn-mower. He is almost always an 
interesting character from whose conversation one 
can derive both pleasure and profit. It is to be 
hoped the breed is not dying out although it is 
disconcerting to reflect that the real skilled gar- 
deners of today are for the most part elderly men, 
and it is difficult to see whence the next crop is 
coming. 
In the old country and in the East too, the head 
gardener is a man of consequence deferred to by 
everyone, young and old, a man who has a definite 
place and prestige in the community and country- 
side. As a boy growing up in England, | had a 
wholesome awe of some of our friends’ gardeners. 
Unhappily, owing to the insanity raging in the world 
in recent years with the consequent ruin and de- 
vastation, many large estates and fine gardens 
have been liquidated in a mournful manner, and 
with them a gracious and serene mode of life is 
disappearing too. Still we hope that ''Somehow 
good will be the final goal of ill.” 
But let us make an end to these lugubrious re- 
flections and resolve to become good gardeners 
in our own right, and if lack of time or physical 
frailty precludes that, let us try to train our possi- 
bly unskilled gardener to become a skilled one. It 
can be done; it is being done all the time. In every 
garden up and down this land or any other land 
a little more knowledge of the requirements of this 
tree or that plant and a little more attention paid 
to those requirements, and an unhappy plant is 
changed to a happy one. In every garden you visit 
you see some plant or plants which are doing un- 
usually well. Aside from the genius and care of the 
owner, there is always some good reason for this 
state of affairs. Genius after all is an infinite ca- 
pacity for taking pains. 
