JOYS OF A GARDEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20976, 12 September 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

JOYS OF A GARDEN.

PITFALLS FOR THE UNWARY.

BY ELSIE K. MORTON.

There is a quaint old story, beloved of our grandparents, of the young minister who entered the pulpit to preach his first sermon. Overcome with nervousness he tried to utter his text, stuttered and stumbled over the words, in hoarse and trembling voice he said, " Dearly beloved brethren, if any of you want the conceit taken out of you, just step up here!"

That was exactly how I felt when 1 entered a seedsman's shop not long ago and looked around at the bewildering array of boxes of young plants. I wanted a modest dozen or so of something that would flower bountifully in two or three weeks, resist all slugs, snails, deluge and drought and go on looking pretty until the end of the summer. It was the first time I had entered a seedsman's shop with serious intent of my own accord; my previous excursions had been made with explicit instructions in writing from the Mother of the Garden, these usually being confined to such simple and concise items as " three bundles Spanish onions, two packets Stratagem peas, half-dozen wallflowers, half-dozen Iceland poppies. But now it was all very different. Never more would the Mother of the Garden move softly among her beloved children, touching them, talking to them, so that for her the garden bloomed and blossomed until its wild loveliness cast a spell of wonder and delight, on all who walked its flower-gemmed paths. For her sake, then, it must be kept bright and beautiful, else must her sweet spirit grieve when spring came, and no flower friends be there to greet- her when she passed once more down garden ways in springtime dawning. . . • The Incense Plants. So I walked up and down between all those dozens of neat little trays of tiny plants with unfamiliar names. Ah! there at last was something that might do—- " Incense plants. Very sweet scented. A row of them would be just the thing, inside the primrose border. Already I could smell the incense rising on the evening air. ... •• Two dozen of these, please, I said to the salesman. Ho paused, trowel m hand. . , "Two dozen?" he said uncertainly. "Two dozen," I repeated rather grandly. It sounded quite a large order. " I want them for a border." "A border ? But I think you d find them rather too big for a border. Perhaps you mean a hedge? They grow into bushes six or seven feet high, you know . It was very humiliating. I hastily changed my order to a dozen Tom Thumb antirrhinums and a dozen dwarf lobelias, and left the shop 'as quickly as possible. My next stop was a hardware emporium. There didn't seem to be any implements at home suitable for planting small things like lobelias. I hail already pronged up several dozen bulbs with the pitch fork and guillotined at least a dozen roots with the carving knife, otherwise a very handy and practical implement for general gardening purposes. I saw some nice little trowels, marked sixpence each. They were flat and had triangular blades, different from any I had seen the Mother using,'but no doubt the correct thing, since they were marked " trowels." I bought one and passed on to the next counter. Then I saw the real thing, a neat little redpainted affair with a scoop at the end. " That's the thing I want," I exclaimed. " You've given me the wrong kind 1" The attendant smiled. " Oh, you want a garden trowel? You didn't say so. I was wondering if it was really a bricklayer's trowel you wanted!"

A bricklayer's trowel! A border of incense plants! I groaned in x spirit. Would it always be like this ? Was there no literature on the subject I could study ? I had been reading the gardening notes in every paper I could lay my hands on for weeks, but they only dealt with obscure matters like budding and grafting, blights, spraying mixtures, and other highly technical matters for superior intellects. Nothing that would prevent the novice from perpetrating such absurdities as those mentioned. . , " If any of you want the conceit taken out of you . . " Exactly so!" I murmured as I left the hardware shop. "Try gardening!" Hunting the Shellback.

That, of course, was merely the beginning of it. After that I burned up four packets of choice seeds by sprinkling them liberally with blood-and-bone before spreading the earth over—" It's good for everything," said the salesman, so I took him at his word. Then I planted a. lot more seeds, forgot whero I had planted them, and dug the ground up again for something else. The next time T planted seeds I broke off twigs from fruit trees and shrubs and stuck them in to mark the spot. Now all the twigs in the garden have burst into leaf 01- bud, and I cannot remember which are slips and cuttings and which are merely seedindicators. .. . How do people get gardens'! And once having got them, how do they keep them ? Are all the slugs and snails in Auckland confined to my poor little patch ? Do other gardeners have to turn out on cold, wet nights, to wander down muddy garden paths with a torch and a bagful of lime, encountering whole battalions of snails on the war-path ? Do they have to set bran-traps, put, broken lamp-shades and jam-jars over precious bulbs, see their tender little plants literally blown out of the ground, young shoots blackened with frosts, seedlings battered to earth with hail and deluge ? Yet the amazing thing is that one's enthusiasm increases under such affliction. I dig with unabated vim, thinking always of that time-to-be when spring flowers shall bloom. . . . Recently T dug up an old bed that held a veritablo network of roots. It was tough work. " How far down do you suppose these roots go?" I asked a* friend who had come to give me a hand with some weeding, as I straightened my aching back after a particularly arduous effort. "Well, I'd hardly like to tell you!" ho replied sympathetically. " But as a matter of fact, I believe it's the pepper tree you are trying to uproot." It was. But I broke the handle of my spade before I believed him. The pepper tree was over twelve feet away. Bunnio's Surprise. Last week Bunnie came over to spend a day or two of her holidays with me. She is nine now, but still extremely attached to snails. 1 gave Iter an old pot and a small tin of lime, promised her a penny a potful, and left her to her own devices. An hour later I went out and found her picking primroses. " But where are the snails?" I cried.

" Oh, auntie, 1 got, ever such a lot, a lovely old grandfather and a mummy and some darling little ones, and I forgot about the lime, and they all crawled away while X was looking for some moie. At 'least, not quite all." she added triumphantly. "Look!" She held out, a small chocoiate box with a piece of glass over the top, containing a marigold and two primrose leaves . . . and the lovely old grandfather and a lovely old grandmother too! " I'm going to take them home with me. We haven't got any snails at all in our garden. I'm going to keep them for pets. Mummy will get a surprise when she sees them, won't she?" " Nothing to the surprise the snails will get when they see mummy!" I replied darkly.