CONCERNING HARDY PLANTS 33 



spring, so that the weeds that must be combated are of 

 new and comparatively shallow growth. The hardy 

 bed, on the contrary, in certain places must be stirred 

 with a fork only and that with the greatest care, for, if 

 well-planned, plants of low growth will carpet the ground 

 between tall standing things, so that in many spots the 

 fingers, with a small weeding hoe only, are admissible. 

 Thus a blade of grass here, some chickweed there, the 

 seed ball of a composite dropping in its aerial flight, and 

 lo ! presently weedlings and seedlings are wrestling 

 together, and you hesitate to deal roughly with one for 

 fear of injuring the constitution of the other. To go to 

 the other extreme and keep the hardy garden or border 

 as spick and span clean as a row of onions or carrots 

 in the vegetable garden, is to do away with the informal- 

 ity and a certain gracious blending of form and colour 

 that is one of its greatest charms. 



Thus it comes about, with the most successful of hardy 

 mixed borders, that, at the end of the third season, things 

 will become a little confused and the relations between 

 certain border-brothers slightly strained; the central 

 flowers of the clumps of phloxes, etc., grow small, be- 

 cause the newer growth of the outside circle saps their 

 vitality. 



Personally, I believe in drastic measures and every 



