"JOYS OF A GARDEN."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20982, 19 September 1931, Page 4 (Supplement)

"JOYS OF A GARDEN."

1 wonder if some of yon read ;m article. " Joys of a Garden," which appeared in last Saturday's Supplement? Among those who did read it was "A Grandmother," and 1 hope she will read our page to-day. for I. want to thank her for the beautiful box of spring flowers I found in my oflice on Monday morning. It was a most delightful surprise! There were daffodils, hyacinths, freesias, primroses, and a bunch of the quaint little green spider orchids of which 1 am particularly fond. There was also a little red and■ white striped flower which I only know bv the name of " twelve o'clock." for at that, hour if always furls its petals. 1 have not seen it for many years, hut when I was a little girl, about nine years old. 1 remember planting a lot of it. in a garden plot. IJow delighted I was when the first wee flowers came! When it. closes its petals it is like the red and white striped candy slicks we used to get when v.e were children, but you never see tlieni nowadays. " Grandmother " put in a slip of p.iper with some lovely white primroses, " my special pels." I wonder if she could spare me one or two roots of those for my garden? They are very beautiful. Elsie Waring has also mentioned my article in a letter. She says : Miss Morton. T rend your humorout nrti.de in Saturday's Supplement and so did mother. She wants me to tell you that you haven't got all the snails and slugs, because we've got ever so many! Will you please lell Bunnie that, 1 too hale killing things? I rescue mice from the cat and birds too. I've even taken sand flies from water, and flies from spider webs, to pay nothing of throwing plugs off the cabbages, lo pave them from drowning. I used to feel that way about things too, Elsie, and I still greatly dislike killing ihe tiny baby snails. I think they are the daintiest, most fragile little things, a miracle of perfection in miniature, with their semi-transparent shells, so exquisitely fashioned. But alas, these wee things inevitably grow into the terrible old grandfathers " and " grandmothers " that bring destruction to my young plants, so one must be remorseless and slay without pity.