82 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



and so give us picturesque variety apart from their planting with 

 flowers. 



Flower Borders against Walls and Houses. — In many 

 situations near houses, and especially old houses, there are delightful 

 opportunities for a very beautiful kind of flower border. The stone 

 forms fine background, and there are no thieving tree roots. Here 

 we have conditions exactly opposite to those in the shrubbery ; here 

 we can have the best soil, and keep it for our favourites ; we can 

 have Delphiniums, Lilies, Paeonies, Irises, and all choice plants well 

 grown. Walls may be adorned with climbers of graceful growth, 

 climbing Rose, Wistaria, Vine, or Clematis, which will help out our 

 beautiful mixed border. Those must to some extent be trained, 

 although they may be allowed a certain degree of abandoned grace 

 even on a wall. In this kind of border we have, as a rule, no back- 



Flower border against wall at Sidbury Manor. 



ground of shrubs, and therefore we must get the choicest variety of plant 

 life into the border itself and we must try to have a constant succes- 

 sion of interest. In winter this kind of border may have a bare look 

 when seen from the windows, but the variety of good hardy plants 

 is so great, that we can make it almost evergreen by using evergreen 

 rock-plants. Where walls are broken with pillars, a still better effect 

 may be obtained by training Vines and Wistaria along the top and 

 over the pillars or the buttresses. 



The Flower Border in the Fruit or Kitchen Garden. 

 — We have here a frequent kind of mixed border often badly made, 

 but which may be excellent. A gqod plan is to secure from about 

 eight to ten feet of rich soil on each side of the walk, and cut the 

 borders off from the main garden by a trellis of some kind from seven 

 feet to nine feet high. This trellis may be of strong iron wire, or, better 



