142 THE PLAN OF THE PLACE 



have given flowers every day from the time the 

 birds began to nest in the spring until the last 

 robin had flown in November. 



I wish that instead of saying flower-bed we 

 might say flower -border. Any good place, as I 

 have said, should have its center open. The sides 

 may be more or less confined by plantings of 

 shrubs and trees and many kinds of herbs. This 

 border -planting sets bounds to the place, and 

 makes it one's own. The person lives inside his 

 place, not on it. He is not cramped and 

 jostled by things scattered all over the place, 

 with no purpose or meaning. Along the borders, 

 against groups, often by the corners of the resi- 

 dence or in front of porches, these are places for 

 flowers. When planting, do not aim at designs or 

 effects: just have lots of flowers, a variety of 

 them, growing luxuriantly, as if they could not 

 help it. Ten flowers against a background are 

 more effective than a hundred in the opw-n yard. 



I have asked a professional artist, Mr. Mathews, 

 to draw me the kind of a flower-bed that he likes. 

 It is shown in Fig. 134. It is a border, a strip 

 of land two or three feet wide along a fence. 

 This is the place where pigweeds usually grow. 

 Here he has planted marigolds, gladiolus, golden- 

 rod, wild asters, China asters, and best of all 

 hollyhocks. Any one would like that flower-gar- 

 den. It has some of that local and indefinable 

 charm which always attaches to an "old-fashioned 



