There is little in the way of instruction that I can give about the mechanical part of planting and caring for ornamentals. I make claim to no particular skill; I am only an amateur and a poor one at that; there are many who succeed where I fail. I love all these dear things with a mother's devotion, but somehow I fall a little short of complete success in planting and making them grow.

I find it a difficult matter to get little plants to grow when put out in the open sun and exposed to the wind. And indeed it is trying for them under ordinary circumstances in Florida. Our sandy soil becomes scorchingly hot under the almost vertical sun, and it soon dries out on the surface, even after rain or thorough watering. For these reasons I have urged that some of the native growth should be left when clearing is being done, for a slight protection until the plants can get a start. I try, when possible, to put my things out in a rainy time but it seems to me that no matter how wet it is when I begin planting it always turns dry immediately and stays so.

It is a good idea to dig out a larger hole than the dimensions of the roots and if one is planting in pine land, as most of us have to do, to work in with the soil some muck and a little fertilizer. Leave a slight depression around the tree or plant to hold water. Water thoroughly and shade the plant if it has leaves on it: palmetto leaves stuck in the ground around it are just the thing and I have sometimes thought that they were made for this especial purpose. I believe in mulching, and always, where it is possible, put a good cover of leaves, grass, seaweed or some kind of trash around newly set plants. If the weather is dry after planting one should water freely until his stuff is established. If necessary the mulching can be removed when the plants are being hoed, or one can use a tooth hoe and not greatly disturb it.

I approach the subject of arranging plants so that their colors and forms of leaves and growth shall harmonize with a good deal of hesitation, first because, judged by the standards of modern landscape gardening I know little about it, and second, what little I think I know is directly contrary to the modern teachings.

I believe that nature is a pretty safe guide in the matter of laying out and planting grounds; at least she points out the way for us. She plants forests, she leaves open glades which stand for our lawns; she joins the forest to the glade by making an irregular border of lower growth between them. Wild animals make paths through the woods and along the open spaces, and these are always made to be used; they stand for our paths and roads. They usually lead along the lines of least resistance, and though they are not often made in straight lines they are usually reasonably direct. They teach that curves and deviations are not to be indulged in merely for ornament. Nature leaves bold ledges and scoops out depressions and grottos, she lays out the courses of rivers and streams, she makes pools and lakes. She makes some mistakes but not many. It has always seemed to me that she blundered when she developed the Australian Pine in the tropics.

Nearly all the art that is required in the natural style of landscape gardening is to show the best of nature and to show nature at her best. Aside from the building of our dwellings and outbuildings we need to do but little that nature doesn't do somewhere and in some way. As Downing has said, "Landscape gardening is an union of natural expression and harmonious cultivation".

We hear a great deal about massing trees and shrubs for effect, of matching colors in planting, of harmony and discord and of many kinds of plants that should never be put near each other, and it seems to me that those who are so insistent about these things only use plants as a means to an end; that to them these beautiful things, which to me seem to have souls, are merely what soldiers are to a commanding general on a battlefield. They remind me of the society woman who must have a nurse whose complexion harmonized with that of her baby. I love each tree, shrub, vine and plant for its own sake; to cut one down or even trim it seems almost cruel. I am interested in them all from the time they are set out, as they build leaf after leaf and growth after growth until they grow old and die. They are my friends and I am theirs, and we seem, in some measure, to understand each other. It is a rest and comfort to me to go among them and visit with them.