American homes and gardens . inst me, and my flowers refused to grow. I fed the hungry soil with rich food, but nothing seemed to still its hunger. It ate up all my seeds; my bulbs went into the ground and were seen no more; and my cuttings perished miserably. The tiny row of hollyhocks that had been coaxed into existence were mistaken by a friend for a dwarf species; the few daffodils that condescended to grow gave me no blooms; and as for the roses—they once and for all refused my gardens hospitality. While I was still bat-tling with my refractory flowers, an old book fell into my hands, and
American homes and gardens . inst me, and my flowers refused to grow. I fed the hungry soil with rich food, but nothing seemed to still its hunger. It ate up all my seeds; my bulbs went into the ground and were seen no more; and my cuttings perished miserably. The tiny row of hollyhocks that had been coaxed into existence were mistaken by a friend for a dwarf species; the few daffodils that condescended to grow gave me no blooms; and as for the roses—they once and for all refused my gardens hospitality. While I was still bat-tling with my refractory flowers, an old book fell into my hands, and I learned from it how, in the old days, gardens without flowers had been con-sidered pleasure enough. In fact it was only in 1567 that flower gardens were really invented by a man named John Parkinson. Until then only fruit, vegetables and herbs were cultivated, and one reads of the square plots bor-dered with privet, sage or gooseberry. Red and w h i t e currants seem to have played a prominent part, being referred to as. raisins. Queen Elizabeth, with her love of color, naturallyencouraged flower gardens. Here was an idea for me. Ifmy foremothers before her had been content to do withoutflowers why should not I ? After this I felt quite justified in ending the unequalstruggle. Flowers I would give up. They should vex meno more. My garden should be frankly useful; but, at thesame time, not a dull kitchen garden. There should besomething pleasant and comely to look at from the win-dows. One must have a place in which to spend the long out-of-door summer anaemic flowers• should all go, but the firtrees and little lawns hadserved me well for carpetand shade and never mademy heart ache, so theymight remain. Now my garden is thor-oughly pre - are borders ofmarjoram, rosemary andlavender, and beds of sage,mint, thyme and otherherbs, besides rows ofgooseberries and beans climb up theirtall sticks along the grassypath, forming quite an ave-n
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectarchitecturedomestic
