11 JUNE 1948, Page 14

In My Garden A year ago I brought home from

a friend's garden in Le Lavandou, on the Mediterranean, a handsome cactus which I planted at the foot of a grass-bank in a sunk garden behind the house. It immediately began to flourish, sheltered from wind and caressed by the sun. This week I put on an odd-job man to " brush " the banks with a hook, as the gardener was busy preparing for the great attack on the yew hedges (a job over which he almost has a nervous break-down every year). To my horror I found that the cactus had been not only cut down, but carefully uprooted. More in anger than in sorrow, I remonstrated with the witless hook. " What, that prickly thing?" he said. " I don't see why you want one o' them sort in the garden. Downright dangerous, I call 'em." After that I left him to the gardener, and soothed myself by contemplating the new pansy-bed, where the massive blooms lay like Victorian pen-wipers in a multitude of patterns. I must write out to