I had been driven to "next year" quite early in the day, for all my plants would be more established, and therefore I trusted more lavish with bloom in their second year with me. They had done their best, I doubted not, and to my eye the promise of growth at the roots began to give as much satisfaction as the few blooms sent, almost tentatively, up into their new surroundings. Ah! for the time when the blue delphinium should be a massive background for the white lilies, and these shine against a thick clump of red valerian; and then the eye should catch the brilliant yellow of the tiger-lily and feel cool in the clear purple of the Indian-pea. And then this scheme should repeat itself, diversified with the stately hollyhock and flaring sunflower, or the feathers of the spiræa, which should rival it in height. More forward in the border should glow the warm-scented sweet-Williams and the bright-headed phlox; the pure white campanula should nod its bells, and the quaint Turk's head hold its own stiffly. Gaillardias and gladiolas, ixias and montbresias should strike a strong-coloured note, and clumps of Canterbury-bells, stocks, zinnias, penstemons, marigolds and scabious should each in turn—and some take a good long turn—bring their share of brightness; and the flowers of the past, the irises, the bleeding heart, the columbines, the bright scarlet geum, the yellow doronicum, should be marked by a patch of green that by diligent growing gave hope of more beauty for the future. In this bright future I was apt to wander and to lose sight of the rather meagre present. But that needs must be one of the consolations of a garden.
And so, hoping all things for my garden, I went to pay visits to other people's gardens.
One grand garden filled me with anything but envy. It was so terribly trim, such rows of variegated geraniums, big calceolarias, featherfew and lobelia. I determined never to treat any bed or border to edgings; to mass even lobelia together and only break it with taller plants, such as geraniums, of the pure good colours quite possible I found, or salvias or fuchsias. Here was line after line, pattern after pattern; surely they were the "goodly sights" Bacon had seen in tarts!
Grand beds of coleus and begonias there were, but these were beyond me, savouring too much of the greenhouse, and all the flowers in the rooms spoke of gardeners and hot-houses.
"I don't think my gardener cares much for herbaceous things," said my hostess. "What flowers do live out of doors? in this climate, I mean."
And I found out that a greenhouse gardener very seldom does care for herbaceous things.
But another smaller garden made me envious. How the plants grew in that blessed soil, with a little river meandering through. No difficulty about water, and that was half the difficulty of flower cultivation overcome.
I knew at once that all I wanted for perfect contentment was one small stream and one small conservatory, then things should march; but I suppose even that highly-blessed woman had a "but" in her lot.
Gardeners are so good to one another. I long for the day when I too shall say, "Oh, I will send you some of that, wait until the autumn," and "You care for this? I can spare some." They must feel they are really doing so much good in the world.
It was a proud moment when one said, "If you have Canterbury-bells to spare, send me some; mine have failed me, they are wretched specimens, and will never do any good."