The rockets are all out. The gardener, in a fit of inspiration,
put them right along the very front of two borders, and I don't
know what his feelings can be now that they are all flowering
and the plants behind are completely hidden; but I have learned
another lesson, and no future gardener shall be allowed
to run riot among my rockets in quite so reckless a fashion.
They are charming things, as delicate in colour as in scent,
and a bowl of them on my writing-table fills the room with fragrance.
Single rows, however, are a mistake; I had masses of them
planted in the grass, and these show how lovely they can be.
A border full of rockets, mauve and white, and nothing else,
must be beautiful; but I don't know how long they last
nor what they look like when they have done flowering.
This I shall find out in a week or two, I suppose. Was ever
a would-be gardener left so entirely to his own blundering?
No doubt it would be a gain of years to the garden if I
were not forced to learn solely by my failures, and if I
had some kind creature to tell me when to do things.
At present the only flowers in the garden are the rockets,
the pansies in the rose beds, and two groups of azaleas--
mollis and pontica. The azaleas have been and still are gorgeous;
I only planted them this spring and they almost at once
began to flower, and the sheltered corner they are in looks
as though it were filled with imprisoned and perpetual sunsets.
Orange, lemon, pink in every delicate shade--what they
will be next year and in succeeding years when the bushes
are bigger, I can imagine from the way they have begun life.
On gray, dull days the effect is absolutely startling.
Next autumn I shall make a great bank of them in front of a belt