22 Feb
22 Feb
22 February 1920
My Very own Bogey
It is raining but such lovely rain; the drops hang in the rose bushes & on every tip of the palm fronds. Little birds sing; the sea sounds solemn & full & silver gulls fly over. I can smell the earth & I can feel how the violets are growing & all the small things down there under my window. It is exquisite. Talking about flowers you know gentlemens buttonholes? (A double daisy small). Child, they grow here in every conceivable colour - & massed together they are really a superb sight. I am sure Sutton would have them. We must remember to grow them so in our garden a round bed. Country Life, of course makes it almost impossible to wait for a garden. When one reads the collection of flowery shrubs, par example - mock orange (you remember that: it was at Mylor) four kinds of flowering quinces, mexican fuchsia ... oh dear me! And then the annuals that sewn in January & February are flowering in Avrilo - there are at least 24 kinds & if you are clever you can grow them so that one kind marches up with banners after the other until the chrysanthemum is there. I think I shall become a very violent gardener. I shall have shelves of tomes & walk about the house whispering the names of flowers. We must have a tiny potting shed, too, just big enough for you & me. I see as I write little small forked sticks with labels on them - daphne grows in England: Eden Phillpotts has a great bush. I shall write for a cutting. I read in Country Life of a most excellent apple called Tom Putts. Silly name, but it seems to be a very fine fruit & the trees bear in their second year. [To J.M. Murry in Collected Letters]