THE HERBACEOUS BORDER 189 



established and well grown. He should not, there- 

 fore, crowd and smother them while still small with 

 quick-growing herbaceous plants. If he has patience 

 enough, he will do well to give his shrubs two years 

 start of the larger herbaceous plants, for the shrubs 

 will be worse than useless in the border unless they 

 are thoroughly shapely and well grown; and it is 

 very easy to spoil a young plant of Lavender amid 

 the rank summer growth of a rich border. 



There is, of course, less need to mask the later 

 flowering herbaceous plants with permanent shrubs 

 than the earlier. Indeed, plants like Dahlias, Michael- 

 mas Daisies, and Chrysanthemums may be employed 

 to hide the Larkspurs and Poppies when they have 

 ceased to be beautiful; and the gardener in planning 

 his border should place his tall early-flowering plants 

 behind his tall late-flowering plants, not, of course, 

 in monotonous rows but in a broken though regular 

 order. An ordered diversity is the secret of com- 

 position in a border as in most other things. The eye 

 should not be drawn from end to end by straight lines 

 of the same plants all flowering together, nor should 

 it be bewildered by a mere confusion. It should be 

 conscious of a framework in the design provided by 

 the repetition of certain prominent plants and relieved 

 by diversity of detail. Parts of this framework must, 

 as we have said, be permanent. Other parts may de- 

 pend upon the flowering season of different conspicuous 

 plants, such as Larkspurs, Pseonies, Phloxes, and 

 Dahlias, placed at regular intervals. But the design 



