The record-union., 1897-04-24
HOME THOUGHTS.
Gardening as Source of Pleasure to
Women and Children.

| UNKNOWN POSSIBILITY. L Uo lOb iiiCeIAi tii~
possession of a garden in which to walk
about and admire what your gardeners
taste and skill have produced, but the
| ownership of however small bit of
land from which by care and watchful-
ness and enlightened fostering you
have seen the growth and enjoyed the
blossoming of flowers that you love.
| There is no way of putting into words
the sort of joy this gives, or of describ-
| ing the healthful delight it inures to
body and mind. A really ridiculous
complacence takes possession of you,
and you almost count yourself the au
| thor of these wonders of growth and
expansion into perfect bloom. At a
critical time you grow quite aware that
Gods sun and rain and dew and frost
! have really primal influences in your
triumph, but taking the good results
as they arrive day by day, you begin
| involuntarily to wear the peculiar
dissatisfied smile of a successful gar
| dener, and hand a rosebud to a friend
with the air of one who had been an
original creator. The failures are apt
to be laid to natures mistakes, but the
successes always are added to the
credit side of your own account.
And this perhaps is a reason why the
occupation is so absorbingly delightful.
There is really a sense in which one
has right to be proud, for the price of
perfect flowers is eternal vigilance"
intelligent watchfulness, and not I'M
commonly a tired body
Some of the things easiest of cultiva-
ton and most delightful in possession
40, -
roses are far stronger and more pro-
life if planted in the early autumn,
and almost all the lilies and irisis come
under the same law The sweat peas
ought to be in the ground as soon as
frost relents enough to till it, but there
are so many charming things which
can neither be sown or planted yet,
that there is a wide field of choice
To those who live in the country all
the year a small pagating- house is
an immense source of pleasure and for
the most part easily within feminine
control; the heating is the only thing
in which you require masculine aid
after your benches" are filled with
earth. The unending interest in start
ing and potting and reporting young
| plants, and the charm of seeing seeds
terminate and spread their young
leaves ready for transplanting to the
| border, can hardly be exaggerated.
If you are making a claim in an al
ready established garden and this is
your first attempt, a narrow bit of
| border is wise choice; or if you are
only cutting into a small lawn to have
a new bed made, keep in mind that it
is best TO make a modest start, and
never have a bed cut which is too wide
for you to reach to its center.
Mark out a square. From the center
take circle from which to form a.
mound-like bed elevated in the middle.
Surround this with a path two feet
wide and leave the angular corners of
the square for smaller divisions this
will give you a useful and practicable
little garden. With heliotrope in one
corner, mignonette in a second. sweet
alyssum in third, and rose geranium
in the fourth, you have established a
store of sweets. The small almost for
| gotten Bon Silene and Hermosa, So
called monthly roses are really ever
blooming, insuring you a bud on al
most every day of the summer and they
fit in delightfully."- to the corsage bou-
quets and all the dainty combinations
one likes to gather from her cwn beds
to give to a friend. This year the
| beautiful new rose, president Carnot. +"
promises with it's exquisite coloring and
extreme refinement of growth and form
to be suitable to such pleasure spots as
! those of which / am now talking, and
the florists say that it will be a con-
slant boomer. l could go on suggest
ing names and plants indefinitely, but
remind myself that to the initiated
this is rehearsing the alphabet of their
science, and that those whom I seek to
interest and make proselytes will only
| be deferred by too large a detail
must add, however that a good strong
plant of sweet-scented verbena (Ver-
| bena citriodora) makes an excellent
| choice for the apex of your circular
mound, and is the exact thing you need
| to add perfection to the mingled odors
of the blossoms already named. The
spicy fragrance Of its young leaves is
| especially acceptable to an invalid.
For myself, having been very fortu-
nate with hardy perpetual roses, I have
a great enthusiasm for them, but 1
shall have to wait to try to tempt
others to seek the same pleasure I'M
til autumn comes; now it is simply an
aggravation to talk of what joy
! big bed of those robust, generous
plants will give.
| For woman to work in garden
with comfort and pleasure there are
certain properties to use a theatre
cal phrase, which ought to be provided
| Usually one thinks first of spade and
hoe and rake; for the first two you
have little need. Spading needs a good
masculine arm and foot, and a hoe is
little used on a small plot kept well
weeded. A small fine rake is often
useful.
| First you need a pair of good, stout
comfortable shoes, and a short, scant,
| storm-serge skirt, to wear with q cal
| leo or Bingham shirtwaist: a wide
brimmed lightweight straw hat: pair
! of thin India rubber gloves. and ali your
| old giants de Suede the thinner and
more flexible the better Stiff. so-called
gardening gloves only tempt you to
| pull them off and use your bare hand
whenever you have any delicate oper-
alton to perform.
Then you want a common uncovered
splint basket with a handle. for your
| trowels Zone large, one smalD, knife,
scissors, strings, labels. syringe, etc,
etc. To these add some grass mat
ting to tie up your plants; this any