I have now in my mind's eye a garden to which was
awarded the capital prize of 1903. A cottage of maybe six small rooms
crowns a high bank on a corner where two rural streets cross. There are
a few square yards of lawn on its front, and still fewer (scarcely eight
or ten) on the side next the cross-street, but on the other two sides
there is nearly a quarter of an acre. On these two sides the limits
touch other gardens, and all four sides are entirely without fencing.
From the front sward have been taken away a number of good shrubs which
once broke it into ineffectual bits, and these have been grouped against
the inward and outward angles of the house. The front porch is
garlanded--not smothered--with vines whose flowers are all white, pink,
blue or light purple. About the base of the porch and of all the house's
front, bloom flowers of these same delicate tints, the tallest nearest
the house, the lesser at their knees and feet. The edges of the
beds--gentle waves that never degenerate to straightness--are thickly
bordered with mignonette. Not an audacious thing, not a red blossom nor
a strong yellow one, nor one broad leaf, nor any mass of dense or dark
foliage, comes into view until one reaches a side of the dwelling. But
there at once he finds the second phase in a crescendo of floral
colors. The base of the house, and especially those empty eye-sockets,
the cellar windows, are veiled in exultant bloom, yellows predominating.
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