LITTLE GARDENS 



the Orient, and cheap materials, hasty methods 

 and insincere workmanship are rewarded as hon- 

 esty and effort used to be. 



You need not use marble, bronze or porce- 

 lain for your central point of interest. Large 

 and decorative plants will serve. The splendid 

 green of the rubber-tree and the exquisite grace 

 of palms, particularly the kentia, qualify these 

 plants for decorative purposes. The kentia bal- 

 moreana is an especially useful palm, less tender, 

 more thrifty, larger and more beautiful in a 

 northern climate than are some of the commoner 

 species. A rockery is not a bad focus for a gar- 

 den, either. These features may be combined 

 by the exercise of a little taste and ingenuity, 

 thus : a crescent of flowers in the bed number 4, 

 third plan, a rock pile back of it, half concealed 

 In vines or cacti, a jardiniere stoutly fixed in the 

 front and center of the rockery, and a water 

 spray arising from before the crescent. This 

 group of objects, or any such, will pleasantly as- 

 sert itself, and will both lend and borrow interest 

 from its surroundings. The focus may be shifted 

 to any part of the yard, and so long as the other 

 contents are subordinate to It and not In rivalry, 

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