Wood and Garden: Notes and Thoughts, Practical and Critical, of a Working Amateur

MP3 Audio CD. Wood and Garden: Notes and Thoughts, Practical and Critical, of a Working Amateur

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY


There are already many and excellent books about gardening; but the love
of a garden, already so deeply implanted in the English heart, is so
rapidly growing, that no excuse is needed for putting forth another.

I lay no claim either to literary ability, or to botanical knowledge, or
even to knowing the best practical methods of cultivation; but I have
lived among outdoor flowers for many years, and have not spared myself
in the way of actual labour, and have come to be on closely intimate and
friendly terms with a great many growing things, and have acquired
certain instincts which, though not clearly defined, are of the nature
of useful knowledge.

But the lesson I have thoroughly learnt, and wish to pass on to others,
is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives. I
rejoice when I see any one, and especially children, inquiring about
flowers, and wanting gardens of their own, and carefully working in
them. For the love of gardening is a seed that once sown never dies, but
always grows and grows to an enduring and ever-increasing source of
happiness.

If in the following chapters I have laid special stress upon gardening
for beautiful effect, it is because it is the way of gardening that I
love best, and understand most of, and that seems to me capable of
giving the greatest amount of pleasure. I am strongly for treating
garden and wooded ground in a pictorial way, mainly with large effects,
and in the second place with lesser beautiful incidents, and for so
arranging plants and trees and grassy spaces that they look happy and at
home, and make no parade of conscious effort. I try for beauty and
harmony everywhere, and es