compel and command the colours on his palette — plants with an unerring 

 hand and awaits the sure result. 



When one says " the simplest means," it does not always mean the 

 easiest. Many people begin their gardening by thinking that the making 

 and maintaining of a handsome and well-filled flower-border is quite an 

 easy matter. In fact, it is one of the most difficult problems in the whole 

 range of horticultural practice — wild gardening perhaps excepted. To 

 achieve anything beyond the ordinary commonplace mixture, that is 

 without plan or forethought, and that glares with the usual faults of bad 

 colour-combinations and yawning, empty gaps, needs years of observation 

 and a considerable knowledge of plants and their ways as individuals. 



For border plants to be at their best must receive special consideration 

 as to their many and different wants. We have to remember that they 

 are gathered together in our gardens from all the temperate regions of the 

 world, and from every kind of soil and situation. From the sub-arctic 

 regions of Siberia to the very edges of the Sahara ; from the cool and 

 ever-moist flanks of the Alps to the sun-dried coasts of the Mediterranean ; 

 from the Cape, from the great mountain ranges of India ; from the cool 

 and temperate Northern States of America — the home of the species from 

 which our garden Phloxes are derived ; from the sultry slopes of Chili and 

 Peru, where the Alstromerias thrust their roots deep down into the earth 

 searching for the precious moisture. 



So it is that as our garden flowers come to us from many climes and 

 many soils, we have to bear in mind the nature of their places of origin 

 the better to be prepared to give them suitable treatment. We have to 

 know, for instance, which are the few plants that will endure drought and 

 a poor, hot soil ; for the greater number abhor it ; and yet such places 

 occur in some gardens and have to be provided with what is suitable. 

 Then we have to know which are those that will only come to their best 

 in a rich loam, and that the Phloxes are among these, and the Roses ; and 

 which are the plants and shrubs that must have Ume, or at least must have 

 it if they are to do their very best. Such are the Clematises and many of 

 the lovely little alpines ; while to some other plants, many of the alpines 

 that grow on the granite, and nearly all the Rhododendrons, lime is 

 absolute poison ; for, entering the system and being drawn up into the 



113 P 



