Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-04-29

The Georgetown garden pilgrimage y
| to be held next month, is an out
standing event in horticultural circles
On May Is and Is typical old George
town gardens of the walled type are
to be thrown open to the public, the
| proceeds to go to worthy charity.
But those who are unable, for any
reason whatsoever, to attend this good
/ pilgrimage need not despair. On any
day of the year the garden-minded
| individual may go peer over back
licences, or walk along streets, without
money or price, and take away with
him great deal of pleasure. to say
nothing of various and assorted hints
on planting.
Every amateur gardener should go on
such pilgrimage at least twice yearly,
once in the early Spring, about this
time, and once in the middle of Sum-
mer. If he can get in third trip,
some time in the Fall, he will be re-
! warded
Such trip is a splendid way to re-
new acquaintance with ones own
neighborhood. Upon occasion one will
| realize, also with a start. that it has
been months, maybe years, since he
toured his own territory.
He may have visited other sections
of Washington, he may have made
Maryland and Virginia, or even gone
across the Continent, visited Canada
and maybe Europe.
All the time his own neighborhood
has been the familiar, so familiar that
he has nsver taken time to visit it in
similar way. His route through it,
morning and evening, has been con-
ditioned by his daily employment;
always he has had some objective.
1t will do any one good If he finds
himself in such a state. to set out de-
liberately to see what he can see.
Let him go nowhere. but just go.
1t must be a non-critiCal Journey.
Criticism is too much with u.s. late
and soon, as Wordsworth partly said.
We lay waste our powers of appre-
ciation we moderns when We stop to
find fault as much as so many of us do.
A critical virus has infected our
minds. so that seldom can We view
anything without subjecting it to a
croSS-eXamination, with particular ref
erence to something else.
Thus the book or painting or bridge
or any other matter which stands be-
fore us shall not so stand if we can
help it, solely in its own right. but
only in regard to other books, other
We drag in, to please our sense of
knowledge, and a petty superiority the
relics of antiquity, if We can do nothing
else, and say that the olden standards
are not met in this essentially modern
article.
If those who go on private garden
pilgrimages are to get the most out of
their tours, they must make up their
minds before they start to search only
for the good things.
Let the mistakes go unsaid If there
is only one good feature in yard.
concentrate on that, and forget the
rest. There will be other places to see
where that which is wrong here is cor
rected, ard that which one does cot
think done correctly here afterward
rlghted to the taste of the Queen of
the Garden
Here is a home with a dark. tree
powered yard in which few things
grow we'll Even the rhododendrons
seem NANCY. But there is a small
stone bridge, which spans nothing in
particular but which looks very we'll
1t is an intriguing bridge.
The sight Of it instantly starts the
beholder to wondering why it was put
there. in the first place; but soon he
sees that this would be the very sort
OF criticism which is profitless.
He admires the tiny bridge. with eacr
stone placed just $3.50. The structure
looks attractive. in its dark setting
Time has stained the stones with those
admirable mixtures of greens and
browns which time alone possesses.
The little bridge has no stream. but