its dark green stems and unequalled colour, or the yellow-centred
rose of the East, which carries the richness of scent to the very
furthest point it can go without losing freshness: they will know
nothing of all these, and I fear they will reproach the poets of
past time for having done according to their wont, and exaggerated
grossly the beauties of the rose.

Well, as a Londoner perhaps I have said too much of roses, since we
can scarcely grow them among suburban smoke, but what I have said of
them applies to other flowers, of which I will say this much more.
Be very shy of double flowers; choose the old columbine where the
clustering doves are unmistakable and distinct, not the double one,
where they run into mere tatters. Choose (if you can get it) the
old china-aster with the yellow centre, that goes so well with the
purple-brown stems and curiously coloured florets, instead of the
lumps that look like cut paper, of which we are now so proud. Don't
be swindled out of that wonder of beauty, a single snowdrop; there
is no gain and plenty of loss in the double one. More loss still in
the double sunflower, which is a coarse-coloured and dull plant,
whereas the single one, though a late comer to our gardens, is by no
means to be despised, since it will grow anywhere, and is both
interesting and beautiful, with its sharply chiselled yellow florets
relieved by the quaintly patterned sad-coloured centre clogged with
honey and beset with bees and butterflies.

So much for over-artificiality in flowers. A word or two about the
misplacing of them. Don't have ferns in your garden. The hart's
tongue in the clefts of the rock, the queer things that grow within
reach of the spray of the waterfall; these are right in their
places. Still more the brake on the woodside, whether in late