THE JOYOUS ART OF GARDENING 



not as irrevocable as an act of Providence. If you are sure its 

 present place isn't the right one, if last year its color jarred 

 with that of its neighbor, why, dig it up carefully and put it 

 where it will comfort the eyes instead of worry them. 



Then, with the plan before you, take your list of flowers 

 and shrubs and "plant" them. Write down "deutzia," "iris," 

 and "poppies," and the like, where you think you will have 

 them go, and see how they fit as to situation, as to time of 

 blooming, and whether the colors are going to clash with one 

 another; if you foresee trouble change them about or select 

 something that will do better. Sometimes it is easier to make 

 three plans, one for spring, one for summer, one for autumn, 

 and arrange your planting on these. For a flower-garden one 

 often makes a plan showing the color scheme for each month. 

 If you are to be away all summer, use the space for autumn 

 and spring flowering plants, and in the summer let the garden 

 go bare as Mother Hubbard's larder. If it is a year-round 

 place, be sure to plan something that will give a bit of cheeri- 

 ness in the winter. 



IMPROMPTU GARDENING 



One's first instinct when ensconced in the average new 

 suburban home is to plant something at once anything; 

 for real-estate syndicates, when "opening up" property, run 

 a kind of improving flat-iron, as it were, over the face of Mother 

 Earth until no natural feature, no tree or hillock, is left; 

 all is as smooth and expressionless as a pail of lard. About 

 the house there is no shrub or vine to bless the landscape, 

 no architectural features but the four clothes-posts in the 

 back yard. Into this hungry space one thrusts tree or shrub 

 or flower-bed anything to relieve the utter blankness. But 

 here the trouble begins. 



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