io FLOWER GARDENING 



benas or some of the creeping perennials, as ground 

 covers, and lilies or other tall flowers will have to 

 be relied on to piece out the season. The ground 

 covers can stand for several years if the soil is 

 very heavily and deeply fertilized at the start. 

 Or there are the numerous so-called roses which 

 properly enough might go in. Lavender, where 

 it proves hardy, is very beautiful planted with 

 China roses. 



Better for the most a garden with roses, or else 

 a little place apart too unpretentious to be des- 

 ignated a rose garden. A great many of the 

 choicest roses are not particularly decorative and 

 may just as well be grown in rows on the edge of 

 the kitchen garden where they can be cut with 

 long stems and in no fear of color robbery. 



An iris or a phlox garden is a safer venture. 

 And if stock is propagated for a few years before 

 the definite planting, the expense need be very 

 little; possibly nothing at all, if there are kind 

 neighbors. Nor is there the great maintenance and 

 renewal expense of a well-ordered rose garden. 



The iris garden may be made a beautiful place 

 the year round by using no other flowers. The 

 bloom of Iris pumila, Iris cristata, the German, 

 Spanish, English, Siberian and Japan irises and the 

 blue and yellow flags will be continuous from April 

 into July, but before and after some of the foliage 

 will be attractive. If the rest of the planting be 

 small evergreens, with a bit of water and some 

 rocks, there will never be the scraggliness that a 



