CHAPTER VII 



SUNSHINE AND SHADE IN THE GARDEN 



I AM sure that half the science of gardening 

 consists in knowing where to place different plants. 

 A man may receive a bundle of new plants, most 

 of which he may never have seen before, and it 

 may easily be a sore puzzle to him to decide in 

 what places it would be best to plant. The 

 gardener of much experience, even if he may not 

 have had to do before with the particular plants 

 sent, will yet, by a sort of intuition, be able, by 

 the appearance of many of them, at once to 

 decide on their right places ; but it requires a 

 long experience, and the longest experience will 

 sometimes make mistakes. The beginner finds 

 himself face to face with a real difficulty. He 

 may be told the country from which the plants 

 come, but that very often will not help him much ; 

 and he may be told that some are quite hardy, 

 while others are more or less tender, but even 

 that does not solve his difficulties. He wishes to 

 do the best he can for his new arrivals, and he 

 determines that they shall have all the advantages 

 that a good position will give them ; but he often 

 makes fatal mistakes, and one of the first that he 

 will be sure to make will be to place many of the 



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