YOUR GARDEN AND MINE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 35, 23 February 1940, Page 41

YOUR GARDEN AND MINE

By

Ann Earncliff

Brown

(No. 23)

AS anyone but its owner H evef seen a garden at those brief elusive moments of perfection which are permanent only in seedsmen’s catalogues? 1 doubt it. Admire my bulbs in spring. Almost certainly the deepest blue will have faded from the Glory of the Snow, the sheen of the. crocus fled.." Ah! You should have'seen'them dast week!" I murmur regretfully. Similarly the mixed border..is always at dts brightest the day before your visit} the ‘lilies*most unspotted "in their purity for my eyes alone. Last week after a series ‘of violent nor’-west winds had swept witheringly over a garden, left with many anxious instructions in my charge, I became really panicky as the hour of the owner’s return drew near. Along the fence facing the nor’-west, the leaves of Scarlet Runners were crisped, the bean pods leathery; pea haulins lay lashed and; torn, .Cabbages aided by a liberal hosing looked fairly "brisk, "and young, celery plants not entirely under the weather. Winter Cole pears carpeted the ground and unripe apples. bumped monotonously down. Over against the. brick wall was the pride of the garden-a row of phenomenally laden tomatoes. Anxiously I peered. Not one fruit had, fallen, nor -were~ the vines at all distressed. As a reward I emptied several buckets of warm rain water over the roots, and wandered: apprehensively towards the ‘flower patch. Certainly the gladioli, being carefully staked and well sheltered from that blasted-pardon — blasting — wind, were quite lovely. In the living room a vase of Commander Kochl glowed richly red, while a mixed bow! in the entrance hall was ‘definitely welcoming. | According to promise, I had daily "gathered Iceland poppies growing in a fairy ring of ethereal beauty. Phlox Drummondi: both: mixed and.in clumps of deep ruby red, had been "gone over," nor had the Rosy Morn petunias, the viscaria, nor the Clarksia escaped my vigilance. To what end? Limp, scorched ‘and battered, they sagged over carefully arranged supports in unseemly -ecearacaae

"Oh! my. dear! the beans looked marvellous. before. the wind,’ .I moaned. "And I really did keep the phlox picked, You should have seen those red onesjust perfect till... ." Feverishly I ie to applaud those heat-loving tomatoes. "One, two, three..." On one burdened vine I had reached " Fifty" when the long-suffering owner suggested that perhaps I could make a guess at the grand total over a cup of tea. "And for any favour, don’t look so worried," she laughed. " You can’t control the -weather." Two days later a visitor, unaware that the hour of perfection had passed, quite enthusiastically admired the gay splashes of colour in that same garden. "Ah!" I heard, "You should have seen it last week." ‘ : 2 * * In my own garden, so I am told, the Eschscholtzias (yes! I can spell this word, though when last I used it, the Editor thought my brain had stutteredand refused to believe in the second "sch") and.the dahlias, in my absence, also were-well less drought-stricken, last week!