40 How to Make a Flower Garden 



The pleasure of one arrival is followed closely by another, until all the 

 company, whose motto is "Perennial Friendship," has assembled, and the 

 full delights of the season are at hand. 



Arabis and Alyssum saxatilc soon spread upon the ground their rugs 

 of white and gold. The bulbs, having made preparations through the 

 winter, are able to bring forward at short notice their delightfully fresh 

 and joyous show of golden-chaliced crocuses, sweet hyacinths, blue scillas, 

 jonquils, and other gladsome, springtime flowers of soft and tender hues ; but 

 when the tulips, bold and gay, are ready, then is the garden quite given over 

 to a revel of colour. They hold up proudly their oriental goblets of richest 

 hues, with a certain cavalier-like air doubtless acc^uired during their adven- 

 tures in Holland, when they so nearly succeeded in taking that country 

 from the Dutch. 



The flash of the tulip display being over, gentle Iris comes with her 

 messages from the gods to men, surrounded, while on earth, by the green 

 lances of her guards. Iris certainly has most exquisite taste in dress. The 

 costumes of this queenly messenger, who brings a period of repose and refine- 

 ment to the border, are marvellous creations of rainbow-hued crepe, chiffon, 

 plush, and rare laces, brightened by a few rich adornments of gold. The 

 opalescent tints are favourites of hers, and charmingly does she use them, 

 sometimes with gold lacings. Always is she a vision of loveliness. 



When the peonies follow, they seem, in their turn, to dominate the 

 garden, as they spread for us a feast of colour ranging from creamy white, 

 through luscious pinks, to deep, restful crimsons. What opulence of bloom 

 is theirs ! The modern peony is, we hope, too truly cultured to be hurt 

 by an allusion to that branch of its family known to our grandmiothers as 

 "piny." Quite inferior were they to the peony beauties of to-day, but very 

 dear to grandmother, along \yith her sw^eet-williams, lilacs and artemisias. 

 Early in the last century Jane Austen wrote from their Chawton home to 

 her sister Cassandra, "Our young piony at the foot of the fir tree has just 

 bloomed, and looks very handsome." It must have had then, as now, that 

 excellent p'ant virtue of presenting a good appearance. All the season 

 through, from its first shining, bright-red shoots until cut down by frost, 

 the peony contrives to look neat and respectable. Not so the hollyhock, 

 however, poor fellow ! He grows sadly rusty and seedy-looking before the 

 summ,er is over, but he is one of the indispensables among the hardy flowers, 

 nevertheless. How could we possibly get on without him ? Whether single, 



