i2 4 HOW TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY 



out of the lawn question all flowers except the shrubs. 

 I do not forget, however, that around the kitchen 

 door the country home-maker has place for a few 

 pinks and annuals. Remember always that you will 

 spend more time and patience planting and weeding 

 a few balsams and asters than you will caring for a 

 shrubbery of a quarter of an acre. I have outgrown 

 nearly all annuals and most of the perennials, and 

 what I do with the rest I have told you already in 

 my discussion of gardens. 



What to do with roses is also a problem. Huge 

 growers, like crimson rambler, can have a place in 

 the shrubbery, and it is not impossible to border a 

 shrubbery with groups of hardy sorts very effectively. 

 Roses, however, call for a good deal of labor, watch- 

 ing and trimming them and removing the old buds, 

 besides the need of spraying and otherwise fighting 

 insects. I am content to plant them where they can 

 be cultivated in rows by horse power, as a rule. In 

 Florida it is different, for our rosebushes get to be 

 great shrubs, needing no winter protection and al- 

 most always in bloom. There we can let them stand 

 eight or ten feet high to constitute a shrubbery by 

 themselves. 



Let me protest, however, against the waste of time 

 and the lack of good taste that would create for a 

 lawn a smooth greensward, out of which is picked 

 every day any little dandelion or wandering clover. 

 It requires constant running of a lawn-mower also 

 a rattling affair that I never could endure, and it 



