Ethel Morton's Enterprise Part 8

"Or dwarf yellow nasturtiums."

"Or yellow pansies."

"We had a yellow stock last summer that was pretty and blossomed forever; nothing seemed to stop it but the 'chill blasts of winter.'"

"Even the short stocks are too tall for a really flat border that would match the others. We must have some 'ten week stocks' in the yellow border, though."

"Whatever we plant for the summer yellow border we must have the yellow spring bulbs right behind it--jonquils and daffodils and yellow tulips and crocuses."

"They're all together now. All we'll have to do will be to select the spot for our yellow bed."

"That's settled then. Mark it on this plan."

Roger held it out to Ethel Brown, who found the right place and indicated the probable length of the yellow bed upon it.

"We'll have the wild garden on one side of the yellow bed and the blue on the other and the pink next the blue," decreed Ethel Blue.

"We haven't decided on the pink border," Dorothy reminded them.

"There's a dwarf pink candytuft that couldn't be beaten for the purpose," said James decisively. "Mother and I planted some last year to see what it was like and it proved to be exactly what you want here."

"I know what I'd like to have for the wild border--either wild ginger or hepatica," announced Helen after some thought.

"I don't know either of them," confessed Tom.

"You will after you've tramped the Rosemont woods with the U.S.C. all this spring," promised Ethel Brown. "They have leaves that aren't unlike in shape--"

"The ginger is heart-shaped," interposed Ethel Blue, "and the hepatica is supposed to be liver-shaped."

"You have to know some physiology to recognize them," said James gravely. "There's where a doctor's son has the advantage," and he patted his chest.

"Their leaves seem much too juicy to be evergreen, but the hepatica does stay green all winter."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Wild Ginger]

"The ginger would make the better edging," Helen decided, "because the leaves lie closer to the ground."

"What are the blossoms?"

"The ginger has such a wee flower hiding under the leaves that it doesn't count, but the hepatica has a beautiful little blue or purple flower at the top of a hairy scape."

"A hairy what?" laughed Roger.

"A scape is a stem that grows up right from the or root-stock and carries only a flower--not any leaves," defined Helen.

"That's a new one on me. I always thought a stem was a stem, whatever it carried," said Roger.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hepatica]

"And a scape was a 'grace' or a 'goat' according to its activities,"

concluded Tom.

"The hepatica would make a border that you wouldn't have to renew all the time," contributed Dorothy, who had been thinking so deeply that she had not heard a word of this interchange, and looked up, wondering why every one was laughing.

"Dorothy keeps her eye on the ball," complimented James. "Have we decided on the background flowers for the wild bed?"

"Joe-Pye-Weed is tall enough," offered James. "It's way up over my head."

"It wouldn't cover the fence much; the blossom is handsome but the foliage is scanty."

"There's a feathery meadow-rue that is tall. The leaves are delicate."

"I know it; it has a fine white blossom and it grows in damp places.

That will be just right. Aren't you going to have trouble with these wild plants that like different kinds of ground?"

"Perhaps we are," Helen admitted. "Our garden is 'middling' dry, but we can keep the wet lovers moist by watering them more generously than the rest."

"How about the watering systems of all these gardens, anyway? You have town water here and at Dorothy's, but how about the new place?"

"The town water runs out as far as Mr. Emerson's, luckily for us, and Mother says she'll have the connection made as soon as the frost is out of the ground so the builders may have all they want for their work and I can have all I need for the garden there."

"If you get that next field with the brook and you want to plant anything there you'll have to dig some ditches for drainage."

"I think I'll keep up on the ridge that's drained by nature."

"That's settled, then. We can't do much planning about the new garden until we go out in a body and make our decisions on the spot," said Margaret. "We'll have to put in vegetables and flowers where they'd rather grow."

"That's what we're trying to do here, only it's on a small scale,"

Roger reminded her. "Our whole garden is about a twentieth of the new one."

"I shouldn't wonder if we had to have some expert help with that,"

guessed James, who had gardened enough at Glen Point not to be ashamed to confess ignorance now and then.

"Mr. Emerson has promised to talk it all over with me," said Dorothy.

"Let's see what there is at Dorothy's present abode, then," said Roger gayly, and he took another sheet of brown paper and began to place on it the position of the house and the existing borders. "Do I understand, madam, that you're going to have a pink border here?"

"I am," replied his cousin firmly, "both here and at the new place."

"Life will take on a rosy hue for these young people if they can make it," commented Della. "Pink flowers, a pink room--is there anything else pink?"

"The name. Mother and I have decided on 'Sweetbrier Lodge.' Don't you think it's pretty?"

"Dandy," approved Roger concisely, as he continued to draw. "Do you want to change any of the beds that were here last summer?" he asked.

"Mother said she liked their positions very well. This long, narrow one in front of the house is to be the pink one. I've got pink tulip bulbs in the ground now and there are some pink flowering shrubs--weigelia and flowering almond--already there against the lattice of the veranda. I'm going to work out a list of plants that will keep a pink bed blossoming all summer and we can use it in three places," and she nodded dreamily to her cousins.

"We'll do that, but I think it would be fun if each one of us tried out a new plant of some kind. Then we can find out which are most suitable for our needs next year. We can report on them to the Club when they come into bloom. It will save a lot of trouble if we tell what we've found out about what some plant likes in the way of soil and position and water and whether it is best to cut it back or to let it bloom all it wants to, and so on."