I have said that the genuine enthusiast in gardening recognises no beginning and no ending to a horticultural year. He does not go into "winter quarters" in October, and resume operations in April. The seasons impose no limits. It is true that some outdoor tasks have to be suspended at times owing to unsuitable weather, but others have accumulated indoors, and the opportunity is taken to make up arrears. Thus it is that gardening years slide so swiftly, although so pleasantly, by.

The harvest month is also the principal holiday month, and it is probable that it supplies the most severe test of the thoroughness of the amateur's devotion. Many will be proof against its seductions, some may succumb. Mr. A. C. Benson remarks in one of his pleasant essays that if a crowd gathers in a field there will be an irresistible inclination on the part of many who see it to join it, and of a few to fly to the other end of the world. The marine parade, the pierrots, the jetty band draw the ungardened many with overwhelming force in August; but the true garden lover will avoid their dust and clangour with a shudder.

It has to be confessed that some gardens get a little tarnished in August. They are "the worse for wear." The owner may not be conscious of any weakness; he may not be able to put his finger on anything that is radically defective, but an experienced eye can see that all is not quite as it should be. The garden has not really lost its youth, but it has arrived at a stage when old age has become a possibility - hair just a little thin, complexion a wee bit wanting in freshness, footsteps tending to drag instead of striking out briskly. Nothing develops quicker than slackness of this kind. The garden decollete is too soon the garden passe.

It may be suggested that such a condition is natural, and therefore to be expected. Plants, it will be said, have a defined period of youth, the same as animals, and if the components of a garden sink, by however slow degrees, towards the "sere and yellow," the garden collectively must show the effects of it. But this is not so convincing as it appears at first. Properly managed gardens are made up of materials which mature at different seasons. We have flowers that give their best beauty in spring, others in summer, and others again in autumn. We have early Apples and late ones. We have Potatoes that are mature in July, and others that do not ripen until October. This being so, it cannot be admitted that a garden must necessarily decline in August. Something will depend on circumstances. A garden on a hot, sandy, or chalky slope in a dry district may fade in August if the rainfall is very scanty; it will certainly do so unless resolute efforts are made to keep it fresh. But a garden on good soil in moist localities ought to be better in August than in any previous month. There will be abundance of Roses, and they alone are a great force. Sweet Peas will be in full glory - stronger, taller, more floriferous than in July. Gladioli will be coming into beauty, and they have a wonderfully revivifying effect on a garden. Hollyhocks and Pentstemons will be at their best. The advance guard of the two great autumn flowers, Dahlia and Chrysanthemum, will be in bloom. Flower beds will have filled out, and tuberous Begonias will have come nicely into bloom.

The rock garden will not be as gay as it was in spring and early summer, as the majority of the plants will have flowered, but Portulacas, Campanulas, An-drosaces, Alpine Pinks, Armeria, Lithospermum, Onosma, Iceland Poppies, Primulas, Saxifrages, and Sedums will be giving flowers.

Herbaceous borders should be at their best. If Paeonies are over, and Delphiniums fading, Phloxes, Hollyhocks, Japanese Anemones, early Michaelmas Daisies, Chrysanthemums, Poppies, Monkshood, Al-stromerias, Ox-eye Daisies, Snapdragons, Pentstemons, Gladioli, Sea Hollies, Gaillardias, Goat's Rues, hardy Geraniums, Sunflowers, Kniphofias, Bergamot, Evening Primroses, Winter Cherries (Physalis), Potentillas, Rud-beckias, Golden Rod, and Veronicas should more than fill their places.

The garden of the suburbanist who makes for the seaside for a fortnight in August admittedly suffers; in fact, the annual holiday marks the turning-point of his horticultural season. 'Tis pity. Could not more be done than is done to counteract the effects of the owner's absence? Could not neighbouring amateur gardeners agree to help each other in this matter, as they do in housing each other's cats? A thorough hoeing, removal of fading flowers, and watering once a week will do wonders in retrieving a falling garden.

When an amateur returns from the seaside and finds that the garden has undergone a rapid process of deterioration (and nothing degenerates more rapidly than a garden), he is apt to think that it is not worth an effort at resuscitation. His holiday is over, the summer is waning, and the world in general is at its last gasp. Kismet! But if things have not gone very far - if his first emotion is one of surprise that things are not far worse rather than one of disgust and despair because they have gone hopelessly to the bad - the amateur will pull himself together and soon restore matters to a good basis. And this is as it should be. Do we get so much summer in our isle that we can afford to bid a dejected good-bye to it in August? Dear me, no! We will hang on to its skirts for several weeks yet, and only begin to realise that it may be waning when we find ourselves enveloped in a November fog.