82 VILLA GARDENING pakt i 



safety and cleanliness, but for a house where only a fire is required 

 occasionally, a flue is not to be despised. I know several little 

 houses that are only required to keep out the frost in winter, where 

 a flue gives every satisfaction and is cheaper than a boiler and 

 pipes would be, as it burns up all the cinders and refuse from the 

 woodyard and house. In the management of bedding plants in 

 winter, dead leaves on the plants, or Moss and weeds in pots, must 

 have no existence, as cleanliness is just as important to the health 

 of plants as it is to human beings. The plants during the short 

 days must be kept on the side of dryness at the root, rather than 

 wet ; yet, at the same time, they must not sufler from drought, 

 and whenever water is required give enough to moisten all the soil. 



CHAPTER XV 



Hardy Border Plants. — With the fastly- growing taste for 

 hardy flowers, some better way of arranging and disposing them 

 will probably be found than was common in olden times ; at any 

 rate, considering the strides gardening has made during the last 

 forty years, it is certain the old-fashioned mixed border will not 

 satisfy all of us now — uor need it, for hardy plants are capable of 

 being formed into an infinite variety of combinations. We may 

 create bold masses of particular plants in suitable situations — such, 

 for instance, as the Foxgloves on the hillside, the Pampas Grass by 

 the water's edge, the Clematis hanging over the clift', or rambling 

 over an arch or arbour. Jackmanni and its hybrids are specially 

 efi'ective in a good-sized mass in summer. Nearly every kind of 

 plant when gathered into masses or clumps has a different effect to 

 what it has when dotted about singly. Of course I do not say the 

 massing system should be always and everywhere adopted ; what 

 I plead for is variety, and sometimes, instead of frittering our space 

 and material away in mixtures that are tame and meaningless, it 

 would be an advantage to gather them together for a bold coup. 



For the arrangement of a border or collection of hardy plants 

 we need not tie ourselves down to any one system. If several 

 borders have to be planted, arrange the plants differently in each. 

 Monotony may creep into a garden of hardy plants, just as easily 

 as it used to do into a garden of Geraniums. Tliere are certain 

 plants of spiral habit, such as the Delphiniums, for instance, which 

 seem specially adapted for dotting about amid dwarf-spreading 

 plants, as each plant in itself is a complete picture, and seeks for 

 a contrasting rather than a harmonising vis-a-vis. Still, even in 

 the case of these plants, for the sake of variety, half a dozen or so 



