CHAPTER V. 



BORDERS OF HARDY FLOWERS. 



We now come to the flowers that are worthy of a place in gardens, 

 and to consider ways of arranging them. Their number and variety 

 being almost without limit, the question is, how the garden lover is to 

 enjoy as many of these treasures as his conditions allow of. As during 

 all time a simple border has been the first expression of flower garden- 

 ing, and as there is no arrangement of flowers more graceful, varied, or 

 capable of giving more delight, and none so easily adapted to almost 

 every kind of garden, some ideas of the various kinds of borders of 

 hardy flowers mainly deserve our first consideration. 



Cost and Endurance. — The difference in cost of growing 

 hardy flowers or tender should be thought of The sacrifice of flower 

 gardens to plants that perish every year has often left them poor of 

 all the nobler plants. We must take into account the hothouses, the 

 propagation of plants by thousands at certain seasons, the planting 

 out at the busiest and fairest time of the year — in June, the digging 

 up and storing in autumn, the care in the winter. 



Perhaps the most striking effects from individual plants ever seen 

 in England were Japanese Lilies grown for years in the open air by 

 Mr. M'Intosh among his Rhododendrons at Weybridge Heath. And 

 not only Lilies ; but many noble flowers may be grown in the same 

 simple way. A few years ago we saw only dense masses of Rhodo- 

 dendrons ; now the idea of growing this shrub with the finer hardy 

 plants has spread. It means more room to show the form of the 

 shrubs, and more light and shade ; mutual relief of shrub and plant ; 

 colonies and groups of lovely plants among the shrubs. Good 

 preparation and some knowledge of plants are needed, but no neces- 

 sity whatever for any system that may not be called permanent. 



There are a number of things which, given thorough preparation 

 at first, it would be wise to leave alone for some years at a time — as, 

 for example, groups or beds of the various Tritomas, Irises, Lilies, 

 Paeonies, the free-flowering Yuccas, Narcissi — these and many more. 



