4 JOTTINGS OF A GENTLEMAN GARDENER 



You may, however, be less fortunate and take over a 

 plot " made " by the builders. The soil of such a plot is 

 generally thin, and rests on all sorts of builders' rubbish. 

 The only thing to do is to dig it over, picking out large 

 stones and broken bricks. These will be useful in many 

 ways, and should be thrown into a heap in a corner. 



You have now a large plot nicely dug over, and wonder 

 how you are going to turn it into a garden full of blazing 

 colours, such as some friend of yours had last year. The 

 next thing to do is to decide on a garden scheme. You 

 want to grow annuals, biennials, and perennials as your 

 friend did, and you shall. 



A good scheme for a small garden is this. Have a plot 

 of grass in the centre, and borders of flowers on all four sides. 

 A good wide path, made by beating down the earth, round 

 the outside of the borders, and two smaller paths across 

 them, by which to enter on to the central grass plot. 



You need not have the centre plot entirely grassed. 

 Square or circular beds may be left and soon filled with 

 plants. Or you may have a rock-garden in the centre 

 instead of grass, this would be a constant source of interest. 

 And other ideas will occur to you. 



At this point a warning is needed. In planning a garden 

 it is necessary to consider the surroundings, and the 

 surroundings of the garden are of course the house built 

 of bricks and mortar, or of stone which is so much less 

 glaring. Further on in this book the reader is recommended 

 to avoid straight lines, and to have winding paths, curved 

 borders, and so on. But here, near the house, is where 

 formality is desirable ; straight and level paths are in 

 keeping with bricks and mortar, and anything else would 

 look incongruous. But keep formality near the house 

 and plan out your scheme to merge into what is less formal 

 as you get away from it. 



Having settled on the general scheme of your garden for 

 the first year, you can now proceed with the practical work. 

 Temporary paths to get about on, should be well beaten 

 down with the spade, and made as hard as is possible. 



