WINTER-FUKNISHING FLOWER BEDS. 105 



away, and the space left for weeds until the time comes 

 round for filling them again ; but there is nothing more 

 easy to avoid than this appearance of desolation, nor, in- 

 deed, is there any period of the year when there is so much 

 need of doing all that can be done for the sake of neatness. 

 At no period of the season ought the flower beds and borders 

 to be unfurnished for a week together ; once set a gardener 

 up, with the means, and he will be unworthy of his place if 

 he do not keep them up himself. We admit, that when the 

 annuals die off, however well the garden may have been 

 furnished before, there is a miserable paucity of flowers ; the 

 close as it were of autumn locks up the pride of the gardener, 

 for one day all his beds and borders may be brilliant with 

 flowers, and the next, all black with rotting foliage and stems. 

 The miserable plight in which everytliing appears, the 

 seeming hopelessness of doing anything to make the place 

 cheerful, the utter dreariness of the flower garden and borders^ 

 look which way he will, may be enough to dishearten some 

 men and to damp the ardour of all. What then is to be 

 done? 



First and foremost, set every hand in the place clearing 

 away the wrecks of flowers and plants ; let nothing like decay 

 be found in any single spot. Of course, this pretty nearly 

 empties the flower beds that are aj)propriated to annuals. 

 Some people plant an odd shrub in the centre of each, as a 

 kind of fixture ; many will have a rose in every clump or bed ; 

 but let us imagine the beautiful geometrical figure which 

 blazed with half-a-dozen colours yesterday, desolate and empty 

 to-day. Let w^hatever number is uniform be planted at once 

 with potted dwarf evergreens, raised and kept in pots for that 

 purpose. Let a large share — that is to say, the most con- 

 spicuous beds in the figiire — be studded with laurustinus, 

 which supply flowers as well as foliage. Let another uniform 

 set of beds in the figure be set with dwarf dark green Arbor- 

 vitse ; as a thii-d set may be planted with variegated holly ; a 

 fourth with Aucuba japonica; a fifth with Berberis Aqui- 

 folium ; a sixth, if there be so many, with small firs, and of 

 these there is such endless variety, that other sets of beds 

 might be furnished with different sorts, varied in form and 

 colour. By mentioning the number that is uniform, we mean 

 this : — if the figure consists of twenty-four beds in. geom^^t^ical 

 order, forming a circle, and radiating, as it were, from the 



