In My Vicarage Garden 



any well-devised plan, because there is no such 

 plan to which they must conform. 



My ideal of a good mixed garden is one in 

 which the borders are always full, in which there 

 is no repetition, so that there can nowhere be 

 found one yard like another, and which in every 

 month of the year and in every week can show a 

 different set of plants in flower. Of such gardens 

 we have already good and pleasant records in 

 Miss Hope's Gardens and Woodlands, in Bright's 

 Year in a Lancashire Garden, in E. V. B.'s Days 

 and Hours in a Garden, and in other books ; 

 and all of these are records of gardens of limited 

 extent. My own garden, including everything, 

 is less than two acres, and I have very little 

 glass, so that almost everything must be hardy ; 

 and yet there is no difficulty in carrying out the 

 principles I have just laid down. Every border 

 must be full ; and for this purpose no border is 

 given up to any one class of plants ; there is a 

 mixture of shrubs, herbaceous plants, bulbs, and 

 ferns all joined together, without any respect to 

 uniformity of outline, or fancied harmonies in 

 colour, or studied variations in heights, but each 

 placed where it grows, because that particular 

 place was supposed to be best suited to its 

 wants, or sometimes for no better reason than to 

 fill a vacancy. But even when thus filled blanks 

 will often occur. Spring bulbs will die down, 

 and early summer flowers will require to be cut 

 down even where they do not disappear after 



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