"No, they mustn't be moved in flower, not even till their leaves die, and by that time the grass will be mowed and I shan't know where they are, and then it will look like this next year too."
"Oh rot!" said Jim, "something has got to be done. Can't have these stragglers roaming across the lawn and never getting home. I know," and off he was and returned with a lot of little sticks which he proceeded to plant by the side of each crocus. "Now we will locate the gentlemen and have 'em up when their poverty-stricken show is over."
Afterwards, when Jim saw in my account that crocuses were two shillings a hundred, he said I did not value his time very highly. He thought by my face we were dealing with things of value. But anyway we moved that ragged regiment on and stationed them in clumps at the foot of trees, where they will look more comfortable.
March should be a very busy month, and old Griggs found employment in the kitchen garden. I should have moved plants now, and arranged the neglected herbaceous border of the autumn, but, alas! all the new green things coming up were strangers to me, and I saw quickly that in their present state Griggs was as likely to make mistakes as I. He hazarded names with a scratch of the head and a pull at the tender green shoots that made me angry.
"Them's a phlox, and them's—oi can't quite mind, it's purple like; and them's flags, but they ain't never much to look at; too old, I reckon. That's a kind of purple flower, grows it do, and that 'ere's a wallflower." This was said with decision, and I too could recognise the poor specimen of a spring joy.
So I left well, or ill, alone until the nature of the plant should be declared, and then, if useless, out it could come later.
We prepared a long narrow bed alongside a row of cabbages, made a neat little trench some three inches deep, put in a layer of manure and mould on top, and there my first sowing of sweet-peas was placed, and carefully covered and watered and patted down. I felt like a mother who tucks her child in bed. Surely the pat did good! February, March and April were all to have their sowing, and then the summer months should have a succession of these many-coloured fragrant joys.
In March also the other annuals found resting-places; some in square patches down the long border, some in rows that looked inviting down the side and cross paths of the kitchen domain. It was encroaching, of course, but no one used the spare edges, and it seemed kind to brighten up the cabbages and onions, all now coming up in long thread-like lines of green. I had added a few more seeds to my list, so a long row of tiny seeds that were to be blue cornflowers, with another row in front of godetia, would provide, I hoped, a very bright sight and be so useful for cutting.