THE OLD-FASHIONED FLOWER GAKDEtf. 7 



requirements, and a gardener to keep it in the exact 

 order without which it will never show to good advan- 

 tage. But the simple flower garden, with its protecting 

 screen of trees (\\here there is space for them), its lively 

 pretty flowering shrubs, its rich clusters of perennials, 

 its standard roses and rosebushes of all varieties, its 

 flowers of graduated heights, descending to low bright 

 varied pinks, pansies, carnations, cloves, and all that is 

 bright and sweet, and, above all, its constant succession 

 of flowers, mixing them up, as Nature does, with plenty 

 of green, is much less exigeant. Life is not made up of 

 great patches of brightness ; and it does not seem that 

 gay flowers were ever intended to be planted so, but 

 were meant to come like our brightest moments, de- 

 tached and resting in repose green foliage. Whoever 

 owns a little bit of ground, industry to work in it, and 

 the wish to make it pretty, may have a flower garden. 

 Even Dirk Hatterick could reckon on spending his ill- 

 gotten gains on a " Blumengarten " ; and there are cer- 

 tainly none so rough that they cannot be softened with 

 the beauties of Nature, none so dull that they cannot be 

 cheered by them. The plain flower garden, with its 

 border round, its beds of just any convenient shape, its 

 lawn, if there be room for one, and the ease with which 

 its work can be done, is especially suitable to those who 

 cultivate their own flower gardens. In the arrange- 

 ment of these gardens the highest things should stand 

 at the back of the borders, and in the centres of the 

 beds. The plants in front or around should be in bold 

 clumps, and should stand well apart, and the earth 

 between should be well weeded ar d neatly raked. In 

 planting it is necessary to calculate time and space. 

 Consider the time of flowering of all that is put in the 

 garden, so that all seasons as they come round may have 

 flowers in bloom, well spaced about the garden, with 

 tolerable regularity. Consider the space which the plants 

 planted and the seeds sown will take when they grow 

 up. In planting and sowing look forward not less than 

 two months, and plant and sow in such a manner that 

 the borders shall not be overcrowded at the end of that 



