with Safrano, and a new red sort in the big centre bed of red roses.
Round the semicircle on the south side of the little privet hedge
two rows of annual larkspurs in all their delicate shades have been sown,
and just beyond the larkspurs, on the grass, is a semicircle of standard
tea and pillar roses.

In front of the house the long borders have been stocked
with larkspurs, annual and perennial, columbines, giant poppies,
pinks, Madonna lilies, wallflowers, hollyhocks, perennial phloxes,
peonies, lavender, starworts, cornflowers, Lychnis chalcedonica,
and bulbs packed in wherever bulbs could go. These are the borders
that were so hardly used by the other gardener. The spring boxes
for the verandah steps have been filled with pink and white and
yellow tulips. I love tulips better than any other spring flower;
they are the embodiment of alert cheerfulness and tidy grace,
and next to a hyacinth look like a wholesome, freshly tubbed young
girl beside a stout lady whose every movement weighs down the air
with patchouli. Their faint, delicate scent is refinement itself;
and is there anything in the world more charming than the sprightly
way they hold up their little faces to the sun. I have heard them
called bold and flaunting, but to me they seem modest grace itself,
only always on the alert to enjoy life as much as they can and not
afraid of looking the sun or anything else above them in the face.
On the grass there are two beds of them carpeted with forget-me-nots;
and in the grass, in scattered groups, are daffodils and narcissus.
Down the wilder shrubbery walks foxgloves and mulleins will (I hope)
shine majestic; and one cool corner, backed by a group of firs,
is graced by Madonna lilies, white foxgloves, and columbines.

In a distant glade I have made a spring garden round an oak