So shall it stand recorded over the new grave.
XXVIII
Mid-August and the lists beginning to come in! Mr. Eden Phillpotts, in his delightful garden book, says that no one is a true garden lover who is not instantly lost in every nurseryman’s list, who does not immediately draw out orders far beyond his means, and spend his time in plans and combinations that shall transcend Kew as well as Babylon. What garden lovers are we in this respect! It is only when the orders are written out and the prices totted up that sober reason obtrudes its forbidding countenance—and then the painful process of “knocking off” begins. Nevertheless we are becoming adepts in combining lavishness with economy. There are delightful firms whose plants are literally to be had at a quarter of the price of others, with results quite as happy.
There is the Dutchman who sends us our bulbs. He has grown to be a friend, and his English letters are charming, “Dear Mrs.,” he wrote when Gladioli, “The Bride,” arrived in a state no Bride should be in, really without a wedding garment—“Dear Mrs., She is a flower the most agreeable in the garden, but she is very unpleasant to travel.”
His catalogue makes equally fascinating reading. The quaint spelling and phraseology are more than attractive. Who, for instance, would not wish to invest in Narcissus, thus described:
“Astrardente, white and apricot orange, edged fiery scarlet magnificent and nice flowers.”
“Nothing,” says another grower, “can equal, much less excel, early single Tulips.”
“Pottebakke White,” cries a third, “is a very large pure white flower, and not to surpass better.”
“Of snow-like variety and delicious fragrance a most beloved flower,” thus our special Hollander labels Lilium Longiflorum Takesima, in words that have a certain charm of poetic simplicity which would not have misbecome the artistic Japanese himself.