And nightingales at Battersea.”
A ROOF GARDEN
CHAPTER VI
PLANTS FOR THE CITY POOR
“Along the dense-packed cities all, and the teeming wharves and ways—every leaf a miracle.”
A kindly K.C. of my acquaintance is always telling us we ought to provide pianos for the poor. “So elevating”—this is his argument. Mine is, that pianos want too much practising—poor people have no time for it; much better give them window-boxes and a spade. A taste for gardening raises the most uneducated, and the mixed elements of chance and skill secure perennial freshness, giving a zest to the pursuit that makes it like the best kind of game.
Mrs. Free, of St. Cuthbert’s Lodge, Millwall, is doing an excellent work in encouraging a love of flowers among her poor. About four years ago, through her efforts, a Window-box Society was started. Members (there are now about seventy) pay twopence annually, and in return receive gifts in kind of bulbs and plants. Prizes are awarded for the best display of flowers. Few families, alas! possess the smallest bit of garden ground, and many have no space for a window-box, but must make the best of a few plants indoors, on a table as near the light as possible. This arrangement, often as I see it, never fails to give a double pang. The first is for the owners, and the second for the plants, that, although taking up more room than ought to be allowed them, are themselves starving for want of air and light.
Last summer, travelling by railway in the heart of London, a poorish-looking, but respectable man entered our carriage, carrying a basket of really beautiful flowers. He had grown them all himself, in a narrow little plot of ground where every single flower was a personal acquaintance. His Lilies were as fragrant as if from a cottage garden in the country. The Madonna-Lily always does grow well for poor people, as we have noticed in many a country garden.