Roses and Violets in Garden at Greenwood, Thomasville, Georgia.
We have had few water-gardens in America till recent years; and there are some drawbacks to their presence near our homes, as I was vividly aware when I visited one in a friend's garden early in May this year. Water-hyacinths were even then in bloom, and two or three exquisite Lilies; and the Lotus leaves rose up charmingly from the surface of the tank. Less charmingly rose up also a cloud of vicious mosquitoes, who greeted the newcomer with a warm chorus of welcome. As our newspapers at that time were filled with plans for the application of kerosene to every inch of water-surface, such as I saw in these Lily tanks, accompanied by magnified drawings of dreadful malaria-bearing insects, I fled from them, preferring to resign both Nymphæa and Anopheles.
Water Garden at Sylvester Manor, Shelter Island, New York.
After the introduction to English folk of that wonder of the world, the Victoria Regia, it was cultivated by enthusiastic flower lovers in America, and was for a time the height of the floral fashion. Never has the glorious Victoria Regia and scarce any other flower been described as by Colonel Higginson, a wonderful, a triumphant word picture. I was a very little child when I saw that same lovely Lily in leaf and flower that he called his neighbor; but I have never forgotten it, nor how afraid I was of it; for some one wished to lift me upon the great leaf to see whether it would hold me above the water. We had heard that the native children in South America floated on the leaves. I objected to this experiment with vehemence; but my mother noted that I was no more frightened than was the faithful gardener at the thought of the possible strain on his precious plant of the weight of a sturdy child of six or seven years. I have seen the Victoria Regia leaves of late years, but I seldom hear of its blossoming; but alas! we take less heed of the blooming of unusual plants than we used to thirty or forty years ago. Then people thronged a greenhouse to see a new Rose or Camellia Japonica; even a Night-blooming Cereus attracted scores of visitors to any house where it blossomed. And a fine Cactus of one of our neighbors always held a crowded reception when in rich bloom. It was a part of the "Flower Exchange," an interest all had for the beautiful flowers of others, a part of the old neighborly life.
