The Planting of Shrubbery. 517 



Wholly aside from any artistic value, a simple collection of 

 common wild plants is always full of interest and merit. Fig. 

 157 shows a plantation which answers the double purpose of a 

 wild garden and a border mass-planting. The area is about three 

 feet wide and ninety feet long, and lies along one side of a small 

 back yard (seen in Fig. 164). The soil was originally a most 

 tough and obstinate clay, so hard that even yet annual plants 

 can scarcely be made to grow in it. Plants have been brought 

 from the wild at odd times and set promiscuously in the border, 

 and it now contains over one hundred distinct species. Every 

 day from April to October there are flowers in it, and every 

 spring it renews itself with scarcely a care on the part of the 

 owner. To be sure, there are some weeds in it, but then, the 

 weeds are a part of the collection ! A well grown bull-thistle in 

 such a place is worth more than a bushel of potatoes. These 

 plants have been lifted from the fields in the most careless fash- 

 ion. A noble plant of the pink-hearted Spiraea lobata was pulled 

 from a swamp in July when it was in full bloom; the bluebells 

 have been stolen from cliffs without regard to time or season; 

 some of the roots were carried in the pocket for hours before the 

 opportunity came for planting, and this, too, in the height of 

 summer. Of course, some plants have resented this treatment, 

 but the border is a happy family and it is all the better and more 

 personal because it is the result of moments of relaxation. 



I have spoken of this choice little weedland to show how 

 simple and easy a thing it is to make an attractive mass-planta- 

 tion. Just set aside a bit of ground in the right place, spade it 

 up and make it rich, and then set plants in it. That is all there 

 is of it. You will not get it to suit you the first year, and per- 

 haps not the second one. You can always pull out plants and 

 put more in. I should be sorry if it did perfectly suit you, for I 

 should then feel that you had lost interest in it. I should never 

 want a lawn-garden if I could not change it a little or plant 

 something new each year. 



A word should be said about just how to make a group. Dig 

 up the entire area. Never set the bushes in holes dug in the 

 sod. Spade up the ground, set the bushes thick, hoe them, and 

 then let them go. If you do not like the bare earth between 



