The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-07-03
THE TYRANNY OF THE GARDEN,


But suppose the spring work is done,
and the summer has come and with it a
garden full OF flowers. The tyranny of the
garden has just begun. Real love OF beau
| ty, and the passion for color, and fashion,
have changed this matter OF flowers into
a hardship instead of blessing. Take a
modern country house for an example.
AS you enter the door, great branches of
Towering shrubs give you greeting. On
the parlor table stand baskets OF purple
coleus and scarlet geranium relieved with
pitcher fall of sweet peas. The corner is
brilliant with mass of coarser flowers
against background of large and strik-
ing leaves. Between the andirons is q
chimney pot Of country favorites, and
near by, tall waving ferns almost hide
the oxeye daisies deity placed among
them. When you sit down to the dainty
breakfast table, fresh roses lie at your
plate, and sweet mignonette and hello
trope add perfume to beauty among the
more prosaic dishes. Wild flowers BIOS
som out of unexpected places; vases hang
on the wall; there are even great jars OF
sunhowers or golden-rod on the piazza!
All this makes a perfect dream of beauty,
and the visitor revels in it, and is glad of
the growing taste for flowers. But to
adopt the words of tragic poet:
mo one hath knowledge how much blood it
COSTS"
These flowers must all be removed
every second day, at least; some of them
every day. These elaborate arrangements,
these symphonies III color, this blend
ing of hues with the very vases that hold
them, are the products of much thought
and cultivated faculty, of time and pa
thence and hard work. Merely picking
the blossoms is a considerable labor;
their arrangement is more so. A country
house of moderate size can not be filed
to overlooking with flowers, as the fash
ion now liz, in any less than two hours.
and it is often the work of the whole hot
draggled morning. Yet every writer and
teacher of household decoration COM
mends this result and begs that we do
not forget to add the flower which gives
touch of poetry to our surroundings.
Is it necessary to have 80 much beauty
at once? This "touch of poetry" be-
comes kind of collection of verses, as it
were-and there is a surfeitl / would
we had less nosegays at time, and less
fatigue and hurry.
The vines themselves help in the tyr
amy. The superabundant blossoms
must be closely picked or they will de-
sert us. Even the neighbors get tired of
such profuse offers, and after awhile they
will not pick the sweet peas at all. The
flower mission is overrun with gifts.
There are not hands enough in the FAM
lily to keep up with the superannuated
nasturtium; the pansies are gone already,
and the mignonette has been left to grow
into spindling, ragged, hobbledehoy
stalks. You almost long for the frost.
Alas, for the Inconsistency Of humanity
With the first cold night panic seizes
us. Our garden will be gone tomorrow.
And all the household hurries out with
all the multitudinous issues of the daily
press-for once blessing. A whole week
we do it. We hurry to stake up" few of
the more hardy plants; we offer slips to all
our friends, whose windows are already
choked with little brown pots; we make
frantic raids on the brilliant autumn
beauty, and fill the house fuller than
ever with extravagant punches of our
choicest blossoms. But they go at last,
and we are surprised in a guilty sigh of
relief.-Anna L. Datoes, IN Good House
keeping.