The garden I have now is a small piece of flat ground
surrounding an ordinary suburban house. Kitchen-
garden, flower-garden, house and drive can scarcely cover
more than two acres. The garden is surrounded by large
forest trees, Spanish Chestnuts and Oaks, whose wicked
roots walk into all the beds almost as fast as we cut them
off. The soil is dry, light and sandy, and ill-adapted to
garden purposes. We are only sixteen miles from London,
and on unfavourable days, when the wind is in the
blighting south-east, the afternoons are darkened by
the smoke of the huge city. This is an immense dis-
JANUARY 7
advantage to all plant life and very injurious to Roses
and many other things. For five or six months in the
winter I live away in London. People often envy me
this, and say : ' What could you do in the garden in the
whiter ? ' But no true gardener would make this remark,
as there is much to be done at all times and seasons.
Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of
the imagination. You are always living three, or indeed
six, months hence. I believe that people entirely devoid
of imagination never can be really good gardeners. To
be content with the present, and not striving about the
future, is fatal.
Living in London in the winter necessitates crowding
the little greenhouse to overflowing with plants and
flowers adapted for sending to London — chosen because
they will bear the journey well, and live some time in
water on their arrival.
January 16th. — I can hardly do better to-day than
tell you about my dark London room, and what I have in
it as regards plant life in this the worst month of the year.
I will begin with the dead and dried things that only bear
the memory of the summer which is gone. At the door
stand two bright-green olive-jars that came from Spain,
into which are stuck large bunches of the white seed-vessels
of Honesty and some flowers of Everlastings (Helichrysum
bracteatum). These last are tied in bunches on to Bamboo
sticks, to make them stand out. Inside the room, on the
end of the piano, is a large dish of yellow, green, and white
Gourds. I grow them because they have that peculiar
quality, in common with Oranges and autumn leaves, of
appearing to give out in the winter the sunlight they have
absorbed in the summer. Their cultivation does not
always succeed with me, as they want a better, sunnier
place than I can sometimes afford to give them. In a
very wet summer they fail altogether. The seeds are
8 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN
sold in mixed packets ; we sow them at the end of April
grow them on in heat, and plant them out at quite the
end of May. In fact, we treat them exactly as you would
Vegetable-marrows, only we train them over a fence.
On the backs of my armchairs are thin Liberty silk
oblong bags, like miniature saddle-bags, filled with dried
Lavender, Sweet Verbena, and Sweet Geranium leaves.
This mixture is much more fragrant than the Lavender
alone. The visitor who leans back in his chair wonders
from where the sweet scent comes.
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The garden I have now is a small piece of flat ground
surrounding an ordinary suburban house. Kitchen-
garden, flower-garden, house and drive can scarcely cover
more than two acres. The garden is surrounded by large
forest trees, Spanish Chestnuts and Oaks, whose wicked
roots walk into all the beds almost as fast as we cut them
off. The soil is dry, light and sandy, and ill-adapted to
garden purposes. We are only sixteen miles from London,
and on unfavourable days, when the wind is in the
blighting south-east, the afternoons are darkened by
the smoke of the huge city. This is an immense dis-
JANUARY 7
advantage to all plant life and very injurious to Roses
and many other things. For five or six months in the
winter I live away in London. People often envy me
this, and say : ' What could you do in the garden in the
whiter ? ' But no true gardener would make this remark,
as there is much to be done at all times and seasons.
Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of
the imagination. You are always living three, or indeed
six, months hence. I believe that people entirely devoid
of imagination never can be really good gardeners. To
be content with the present, and not striving about the
future, is fatal.
Living in London in the winter necessitates crowding
the little greenhouse to overflowing with plants and
flowers adapted for sending to London — chosen because
they will bear the journey well, and live some time in
water on their arrival.
January 16th. — I can hardly do better to-day than
tell you about my dark London room, and what I have in
it as regards plant life in this the worst month of the year.
I will begin with the dead and dried things that only bear
the memory of the summer which is gone. At the door
stand two bright-green olive-jars that came from Spain,
into which are stuck large bunches of the white seed-vessels
of Honesty and some flowers of Everlastings (Helichrysum
bracteatum). These last are tied in bunches on to Bamboo
sticks, to make them stand out. Inside the room, on the
end of the piano, is a large dish of yellow, green, and white
Gourds. I grow them because they have that peculiar
quality, in common with Oranges and autumn leaves, of
appearing to give out in the winter the sunlight they have
absorbed in the summer. Their cultivation does not
always succeed with me, as they want a better, sunnier
place than I can sometimes afford to give them. In a
very wet summer they fail altogether. The seeds are
8 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN
sold in mixed packets ; we sow them at the end of April
grow them on in heat, and plant them out at quite the
end of May. In fact, we treat them exactly as you would
Vegetable-marrows, only we train them over a fence.
On the backs of my armchairs are thin Liberty silk
oblong bags, like miniature saddle-bags, filled with dried
Lavender, Sweet Verbena, and Sweet Geranium leaves.
This mixture is much more fragrant than the Lavender
alone. The visitor who leans back in his chair wonders
from where the sweet scent comes.