8 MANUAL OF GARDENING 



ornamental grasses and castor beans; these plants are to pro- 

 duce effects quite foreign to the expression of a northern land- 

 scape, and they are usually at their best and are most luxuriant 

 when overtaken by the fall frosts. 



Now, the home gardener usually relies on plants that more 

 or less come and go with the seasons. He pieces out and 

 extends the season, to be sure ; but a garden with pansies, 

 pinks, sweet william, roses, sweet peas, petunias, marigolds, 

 salpiglossis, sweet sultan, poppies, zinnias, asters, cosmos, 

 and the rest, is a progress-of-the-season garden, nevertheless; 

 and if it is a garden of herbaceous perennials, it still more 

 completely expresses the time-of-year. 



My reader will now consider, perhaps, whether he would 

 have his garden accent and heighten his natural year from 

 spring to fall, or whether he desires to thrust into his year a 

 feeling of another order of vegetation. Either is allowable; 

 but the gardener should distinguish at the outset. 



I wish to suggest to my reader, also, that it is possible for 

 the garden to retain some interest even in the winter months. 

 I sometimes question whether it is altogether wise to clear 

 out the old garden stems too completely and too smoothly in 

 the fall, and thereby obliterate every mark of it for the winter 

 months; but however this may be, there are two ways by 

 which the garden year may be extended: by planting things 

 that bloom very late in fall and others that bloom very early 

 in spring; by using freely, in the backgrounds, of bushes and 

 trees that have interesting winter characters. 



The plan of the grounds (see Plate II). 



One cannot expect satisfaction in the planting and develop- 

 ing of a home area unless he has a clear conception of what is 

 to be done. This necessarily follows, since the pleasure that 

 one derives from any enterprise depends chiefly on the definite- 

 ness of his ideals and his ability to develop them. The home- 



