Part 15

"It used to look very well in Mr Wood's time, but that is many years ago, and he devoted himself chiefly to his roses. It is a pity you did not do it in the autumn."

"Oh, don't, Master!" I cried dolefully. "Nothing is more trying to my temper than to be told of all the things that ought to have been done months and years ago. I can't go back and do them!"

"No more you can. There is a great deal of sound sense in that remark, only--"

"And don't tell me to wait until the autumn again. I can't always be waiting for the other end of the year to do the things I want done now."

"Oh! then let us go forward at once," said the Master.

"What shall I do?" asked the Young Man, with as much energy as though the afternoon were just beginning. "Shall I take out the roots we have put in to begin with?"

The Master again looked up and down, and I could see he was again regretting the autumn.

"If you won't wait it must be done," he said at last. "Have this border thoroughly well turned over, two feet deep at the least, and work in some of that savoury heap I saw in your little yard. You will find a good deal of root to cut away from those trees; they take the food from this border, but that can't be helped now. Then clear out the weeds and those terrible marigolds I see springing up everywhere, and those poppy seedlings. I think your new friends will have a better chance when that is done."

"And the plants that are to stay, may they be touched?"

"You must touch them, but do a piece at a time, and lift them in and out with a good ball of earth round the roots so as to disturb them as little as possible. Press them well in afterwards and water."

"Should Griggs put some of the savoury heap just round their roots?"

"No, no, let the whole border have a dressing. Later on any special plant may be mulched if it is needed."

"Mulched!" said the Young Man, turning to me. "Do you know what that is?"

I shook an ignorant head.

"Something to do with manure, I believe, but I don't know what."

"Griggs will show you," laughed the Master.

"No, he has his own vocabulary. I try the garden book words on him occasionally and he looks quite blank."

"It is giving the plants a little extra food from the surface. So it sinks gradually in or the rain carries it down with it. A gentle process and the roots are not disturbed. The other process may produce indigestion, you see."

Adam and Eve carefully replaced the unplanted roots in the hamper and gave a sigh.

"Oh, dear! All our work. You might as well have gone to see Mrs Gunnet."

"Oh, no," said Adam, "because I have learnt a great deal and can help you another time."

It was a good thing for me and the border that the Master had looked so grave over it, for his Reverence was duly impressed with the necessity of the case, and Griggs and a helpful stranger were hard at work next day and the next, and by the end of that week the border lay smooth and brown and neat with hopeful green patches at intervals. Jim and I and the Young Man had been very busy arranging those patches, and I hoped the front plants would not grow taller than the back, but a good deal had been left to luck. The evening primroses and marigolds and weeds had disappeared, I hoped for good. Time proved that this was too hopeful a view to take of weeds.

And I will never forget the Master's parting injunction.

"Mind," with raised finger, "you ought never to take a spade near your herbaceous border, only turn it over with a little fork, for the well-established roots should not be disturbed. And good soil and sufficient water ought to be enough as a rule. To-day we have been dealing with an exceptional case, remember that!"

Oh! Master, yes. Mine is an exceptional case; but I guess there are many would-be gardeners as ignorant, and, maybe, many gardens as exceptional.

* * * * *

But to return to my hopefully-growing seeds. I fear they were being left anyway rather longer than was judicious, for one day about the beginning of April it struck me my wooden boxes were very full and the plantlets growing very leggy.

"Why is that?" I asked Griggs. I hated asking Griggs, but there was no one else to ask. After all it seemed impossible but that Griggs, during the forty odd years he had pretended to be a gardener, should not have gathered together some scraps of information concerning plants and their ways.