ings in its window-boxes; but
elsewhere all too frequently one finds the Jacoby geranium and the
edging of blue lobelia. I think that people get these things and grow
them just exactly as they pay their dog licence--not because they want
to do it but because they feel they must. There is probably an organised
conspiracy between florists and jobbing gardeners to promote Jacobys.
"You will be wanting some geraniums," says the florist decisively, and
you are hypnotised into believing it. "What could we have in that bed?"
you ask the jobbing gardener. "A few Jacobys," he says, with the air of
a man who has had a bright idea. If he does not edge them with blue
lobelia, he edges them with some yellow stuff which I think he calls
pyrethrum. One has only to smell it once never to try it again. At the
same time there are some super-cultured people who carry the hatred of
the geranium to an unreasonable extent. There is a white one which does
not make me ill, and a pink one which is not too hideous. But as it
happens, the only geranium in my garden is the one which is grown solely
for the scent of its leaves. One year where geraniums might have been I
had blue-violet verbenas, sweet-scented and just as easy to grow. I was
told to hairpin them to the ground, but out of obstinacy I grew them
upright. They did not seem to mind. I have no rage against the blue
lobelia, if it is put in a safe place where its colour can do no harm. I
do not know why the white lobelia has so much less popularity. One is
not bound to grow it as an edging. Now I come to think of it, I believe
I hate all edgings.

I am not very fond of those flowers which are distinctively villa
flowers. I do not think there is any man alive who could sell me a
yellow calceolaria or persuade me to find room for it in my garden. The
fuschia too is rather a self-conscious and ostentatious thing, though I
admit the tree-fuschia. To these I prefer musk, and mignonette, and
heliotrope. They flourish in a wet summer, and I wish I did. Lilies and
carnations of course one must have, and London permits it. London pride
is common enough, but I like it and grow it. It is a generous thing that
asks little and gives much. If only its graceful flower were expensive,
it would be greatly admired. The white and yellow marguerites are of no
dazzling rarity, but I welcome them. Hosts of the old-fashioned
perennials are desirable and possible, though there are some of them
that need to be wat