The greatest standby to the amateur gardener should undoubtedly be
the blue-flowered shrub known as "plumbago". This homely but hardy plant
will grow anywhere. It naturally prefers a good soil,
and a sufficient rainfall, but if need be it will worry along
without either. Fowls cannot scratch it up, and even the goat
turns away dismayed from its hard-featured branches.
The flower is not strikingly beautiful nor ravishingly scented,
but it flowers nine months out of the year; smothered with street dust
and scorched by the summer sun, you will find that faithful old plumbago
plugging along undismayed. A plant like this should be encouraged --
but the misguided amateur gardener as a rule despises it.

The plant known as the churchyard geranium is also one marked out
by Providence for the amateur; so is Cosmea, which comes up year after year
where once planted. In creepers, bignonia and lantana will hold their own
under difficulties perhaps as well as any that can be found.
In trees the Port Jackson fig is a patriotic one to grow.
It is a fine plant to provide exercise, as it sheds its leaves unsparingly,
and requires the whole garden to be swept up every day.

Your aim as a student of Nature should be to encourage
the survival of the fittest. There is a grass called nut grass,
and another called Parramatta grass, either of which holds its own
against anything living or dead. The average gardening manual
gives you recipes for destroying these. Why should you destroy them
in favour of a sickly plant that needs constant attention? No.
The Parramatta grass is the selected of Nature, and who are you
to interfere with Nature?

Having decided to go in for strong, simple plants that will hold their own,