Spring in Our Gardens

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 9, 12 September 1930, Page 31

Spring in Our Gardens

Occupy the Odd Minutes DURING these dark and stormy days it has been hard- indeed to believe that spring is really here, but so it is; and if we wish our gardens to do justice to the loveliest of all seasons we must snatch at every chance to do a little in the garden. I am often amazed to find how many of my women friends think that it is useless to attempt to do anything in the garden unless they have at least a half day to give to the work, yet the more I garden thé more I am convinced that it is the half-hours, nay, even the odd minutes, spent’ among the flowers ¢

-_ that go farthest to produce good re sults.. ' ' My friends admire | my garden greatly, and exclaim at the work and time it must absorb, yet I am sure that most of my success is due to the’ habit I have formed of "pottering" round my favourite plants, while ‘my afternoon tea kettle boils. weeny .So many of our suburban gardeners fail to get results from their work becatise they garden in spasms. ‘They will spend'a week-end in hard work in the garden, plant out a number of plants from the nurseryman, and then put away their tools with a. sigh of relief, and a feeling that if the garden does not repay their labours with a gorgeous display of blooms it will be ungrateful indeed. =. -| But nothing of the kind happens, The winds, for which our land is justly famed, sweep over the soil, forming a hard crust, and the poor little plants, too often sold fresh from the artificial shelter of the. greenhouse, make little or no headway. Meanwhile the old lady next door, who gardens .nost unscientificially, and is always poking about with a broken dinner knife, has a far finer display of flowers than. the poor one who nearly broke his back last month and covered his hands with blisters. Let us, then, remember that with plants (as with women) it ia the constant’ small attentions that count. PSS OI IIH HI HHI HOS SOI IO I