CHAPTER II. PERENNIALS 



I. Some Lessons from the Pan-American Exposition 



By L. H. Bailey 



'N HERB is a plant that dies to the ground in winter, and a 

 border is a strip of planting skirting the boundaries of a 

 place or lying along the walks or dri\-es. We grow herbs 

 ^_^ because we like them. We make borders of them because 



_ ^^^ ^ ^ they look better in such places, are more easily cared 

 for, and are not under foot. A pigweed in the middle of the lawn is 

 lonesome and a nuisance ; or if we pull it up we have nothing to put 

 in the hole. A pigweed in the border is happy and attractive; or if we do 

 not like it and pull it up, there are other plants of its height and size to take 

 its place. Anybody can make a border. It is a simple matter. But just 

 because it is so simple and easy, there are few men who make attractive 

 ones. Some of the best that we have had the privilege of seeing were on 

 the Pan-American grounds. Probably few of the visitors to the exposition 

 made more than a casual note of the herbaceous planting at the south end 

 of the grounds, or thought of the care that had been expended there. Twenty 

 acres were devoted to these beds. There were fif ly exhibitors and more than 

 two hundred plats. The difficulties are great in such plantings as these. The 

 land is newly prepared. The time is short. There are few plants of a great 

 many kinds. Each plant is to be an exhibit, and must therefore have 

 opportunity to display itself. Exhibition planting is difficult to manage 

 in an artistic way. If each plant is isolated, the mass-effect is lost and 

 the plantation is Hkely to be a mere nursery. 



The two pictures shown on pages 27 and 31 illustrate bold and artistic 

 effects produced with exhibition plants, and there were many other examples 

 as good as these on the exposition grounds. These plantings were the work 

 of William Scott, Superintendent of Floriculture, and a florist of Buffalo. 

 Mr. Scott has been known chiefly as a florist. We shall now think of him 

 also as a gardener — in the broader sense — and as an artist 'n dealing with 

 plants He had the great advantage of knowing how to grow the things. 



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