“I’m glad to find someone who is interested in my hobby,” was Mrs. Tompkins’ reply, as she smiled at Norma. “Come right out and let me introduce you to my favorites in the flower beds.”
Norma and Mrs. James followed their hostess out to her large gardens, and Mrs. Tompkins began describing various plants as they passed them.
“You’ll find that most of my flowers in the beds nearest the house are all of the old-fashioned variety, because they give out such sweet perfume. I love to sit by my back window and smell their refreshing odors. It is payment in full for all the time I give to their food and growth.”
The two visitors walked slowly along the neat footpath and stopped frequently to stoop and smell of a bright blossom, or admire a wonderful color of a flower.
“I try to use good judgment in the arrangement of my plants, too, as well as to group the colors so they will blend instead of fight with each other. Sometimes, I have great difficulty in this arrangement, as a flower will open and surprise me with an entirely different color or shade than I expected. Quite often, the bees, or birds, will carry a germ from one flower to another when they visit it to sip the nectar, and this fertilization of the seed, after the flower dies, is made manifest in a totally different color in the next production of the plant.”
“Oh, how interesting! I never knew such things happened in a flower garden,” exclaimed Norma.
Mrs. Tompkins laughed at the girl’s very evident interest. “You will find stranger and more absorbing things happening in a flower garden, than this very common occurrence. Because you see, it really depends upon the breezes, the bees, or the birds—sometimes, on a creeping insect or caterpillar—to carry pollen and the fertilizing germs from one flower to another. And Nature seldom errs in her judgments, either.”
“Mrs. Tompkins,” now asked Mrs. James, “do you know anything of the quality of the soil in the flower beds at Green Hill?”
“I’m afraid I am not well enough acquainted with it to render any verdict on it now. But I could visit you and examine it, so as to give you an intelligent answer on what flowers it will raise. The last tenant of the farm did not waste much time, or money, on the floral side of the grounds. His hobby was vegetable growing and the barn yard, and his wife cared little for gardening, so the beds were generally neglected.
“Fortunately, there is no danger of spoiling soil when it is not planted, and it is a very easy matter to enrich it so that any plant will thrive in it. The only impossible soil is what is known as ‘hard pan,’ but we find little of that around here.”