Last Words: A Final Collection of StoriesEwing, Juliana Horatia
General
Last Words: A Final Collection of Stories
Ewing, Juliana Horatia
Children's stories; Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction
I do not know if it becomes unmanageable, but, in moderation, I think
chamomile a very charming intruder on a lawn, and the aromatic scent
which it yields to one's tread to be very grateful in the open air. It
is pleasant, too, to have a knoll or a bank somewhere, where thyme can
grow among the grass. But the subject of flowers that grow well
through grass is a large one. It is one also on which the members of
our Parkinson Society would do kindly to give us any exceptional
experiences, especially in reference to flowers which not only
flourish among grass, but do not resent being mown down. The lovely
blue windflower (_Anemone Apennina_), is, I believe, one of these.
There is no doubt that now and then plants prefer to meet with a
little resistance, and despise a bed that is made too comfortable.
Self-sown ones often come up much more vigorously through the hard
path than when the seed has fallen within the border. The way to grow
the parsley fern is said to be to clap a good big stone on his crown
very early in the spring, and let him struggle out at all corners from
underneath it. It is undoubtedly a comfort to rock-plants and creeping
things to be planted with a stone over their feet to keep them cool!
Which reminds me of stones for bordering. I think they make the best
of all edgings for a Little Garden. Box-edgings are the prettiest, but
they are expensive, require good keeping, and harbor slugs. For that
matter, most things seem to harbor slugs in any but a very dry
climate, and there are even more prescriptions for their destruction
than that of lawn weeds. I don't think lime does much, nor soot. Wet
soon slakes them. Thick slices of turnip are attractive. Slugs really
do seem to like them, even better than one's favorite seedlings.
Little heaps of bran also, and young lettuces. My slugs do not care
for cabbage leaves, and they are very untidy. Put thick slices of
turnip near your auriculas, favorite primroses and polyanthuses, and
Christmas roses, and near anything tender and not well established,
and overhaul them early in the morning. "You can't get up too early,
if you have a garden," says Mr. Warner; and he adds: "Things appear to
go on in the night in the garden uncommonly. It would be less trouble
to stay up than it is to get up so early!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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