ROSES FOR THORNS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18996, 18 April 1925, Page 4 (Supplement)

ROSES FOR THORNS.

VISION AND FULFILMENT. To these who possess gardens and love them, to those who lovo gardens and do not possess them, and to all in whom, however thwarted by fate, the borno-mak-ing instinct is strong. " The Story of My Ruin " (Herbert Jenkins), by Marion Cran, F.R.11.5., will come like a fragrant breath from the herb-garden of memory. Readers of the delightful " Garden of fgnoranco " will not need to be told that Mrs. Crati has at her command a charming stylo and a mind well stocked in more compartments than that of merely horticultural learning, so that her books give pleasure even to unregerierate folk who do not know enough to distinguish a sedum from a saxifrage, or a wichuraian.i from a hybrid tea Paramount, however, above all other attractions in this book is the transformation (or restoration) of a desolate, ruined cottage into a sturdy, , self-respecting home, with a flagged path bordered by "lilies and roses, ladslove and lavender." and within, gleaming polished floors, oakmullioned windows and blazing logs in a fireplace as big as a room. A dilapidated English cottage is a very different proposition from its New Zealand sister. It. is not given to us to discover. amid rotting rimu and worm-eaten lcahikatea, such treasures ns a "splay of curved beams" radiating from ari oaken king-post," which sprang from a. mighty tie-beam, and stout would be the heart, that could find romance in the sunset hues that colour buckling strips of corrugated iron! For the garden-lover pure and simple (and to love a garden keeps one so), there are chapters on roses, a talk about irises, "the poor man's orchid," and another on the possibilities of a berry farm, not to mention the thousand and one hints scattered throughout upon schemes of planting, statuary in the garden, the peculiarities of heavy arid light soil, and so on. Rut if is *in ita human interest, its sad and tender grace, its humour and humanity, that the book will make the most general appeal. " The Story of My Ruin " is, then, a l.<x>k which "(if you buy it) all your friends will want tr> borrow: hut. for the reasons given, it is not a safe book to lend.