THE LADY'S COUNTRY COMPANION. 183 



approach blue or pink. A little practice will do more than any 

 lengthened details ; generally speaking, you may take the same taste 

 to guide you in arranging the colours of the flowers in your parterre 

 that you use in choosing the colours of your dresses ; and if you are 

 in any doubt, you have only to colour the beds in the plan, and see 

 how they look ; or to stick coloured wafers on a piece of paper, for 

 the same purpose. 



When you have settled what to plant in the beds of your garden, 

 supposing you to choose the plan, you must next think of the 

 beds round it. I should advise these to remain unplanted, unless 

 they are sown with mignonnette, or something of that kind. The 

 shrubberies, I have already stated, should, I think, consist chiefly of 

 the finer kinds of hardy evergreens ; at least that should which is 

 opposite the windows of your sitting-room. The other shrubbery, 

 which is intended to unite the garden scenery with that of the park, 

 may be planted with rhododendrons, acacias, and kalmias ; the rho- 

 dodendrons being farthest from the walk, and carried a little out into 

 the park, so as to make a broken line, projecting in some places, and 

 receding in others, and here and there mixed with bushes of phillyrea, 

 alaternus, holly of various kinds, and Crataegus, so as gradually to 

 mingle with the clumps of trees in the park. On the side next your 

 room, if there are to be beds under the windows, there should be 

 spaces left in them which should be gravelled, so that you may throw 

 the window open, and not only walk out on gravel, but walk round 

 the garden on gravel also. This you will find a great convenience if 

 the weather should be wet, though you must not mind going upon the 

 grass, if you are to be a real gardener, and to attend to the flowers 

 in the regular beds. With regard to the beds near the house, I 

 would have a Lonicera flexuosa trained over each window, on account 

 of its delightful fragrance in summer ; for a similar reason I would 

 have Chimonanthus fragrans against the walls between the windows, 

 and mignonnette and violets in the beds. 



I think nothing can be more delightful than to throw open your 

 window, and to inhale a refreshing odour from growing flowers when 

 they are swept over by a balmy breeze, particularly after a slight 

 shower ; and, for this purpose, I would strongly recommend you to 

 plant flowers near your windows which have a refreshing, but not a 

 heavy scent. The flowers of the evergreen magnolia, and those of the 



