BORDERS OF HARDY FLOWERS. 83 



still, of simple rough wooden branches. Any kind of rough permanent . 

 trellis will do, on which we may grow Climbing Roses and Clematis 

 and all the choicer but not rampant climbers. Moreover, we can 

 grow them in their natural grace along the wires or rough branches, 

 or up and across a rough wooden trellis Rose and Jasmine showing 

 their grace uncontrolled. We fix the main branches to the supports, 

 and leave the rest to the winds, and form a fine type of flower 

 border in this way, as we have the graceful climbing plants in contrast 

 with the flowers in the border. 



General borders may be made in various ways ; but it may be well 

 to bear in mind the following points : Select only good plants ; throw 

 away weedy kinds, there is no scarcity of the best. See good col- 

 lections. Put, at first, rare kinds in lines across four-feet nursery 

 beds, so that a stock of plants may be at hand. Make the choicest 

 borders where they cannot be robbed by the roots of trees ; see that 

 the ground is good and rich, and that it is at least two and a half 

 feet deep, so deep that, in a dry season, the roots can seek their 

 supplies far below the surface. In planting, plant in naturally dis- 

 posed groups, never repeating the same plant along the border at 

 intervals, as is so often done with favourites. Do not graduate the 

 plants in height from the front to the back, as is generally done, but 

 sometimes let a bold plant come to the edge ; and, on the other hand, 

 let a little carpet of a dwarf plant pass in here and there to the back, 

 so as to give a varied instead of a monotonous surface. Have no 

 patience with bare ground, and cover the border with dwarf plants ; do 

 not put them along the front of the border only. Let Hepaticas and 

 double and other Primroses, and Saxifrages, and Golden Moneywort 

 and Stonecrops, and Forget-me-nots, and dwarf Phloxes, and many 

 similar plants cover the ground among the tall plants betimes at the 

 back as well as the front. Let the little ground plants form broad 

 patches and colonies by themselves occasionally, and let them pass into 

 and under other plants. A white Lily will be all the better for having 

 a colony of creeping Forget-me-nots over it in the winter, and the 

 variety that may be thus obtained is infinite. 



Thoroughly prepared at first, the border might remain for years 

 without any digging in the usual sense. When a plant is old and 

 rather too thick, never hesitate to . replant it on a wet day in the 

 middle of August any more than in the middle of winter. Take it 

 up and put a fresh bold group in fresh ground ; the young plants 

 will have plenty of roots by the winter, and in the following spring 

 will flower much stronger than if they had been transplanted in 

 spring or in winter. Do not pay much attention to labelling ; if a 

 plant is not worth knowing, it is not worth growing ; let each good 

 thing be so bold and so well grown as to make its presence felt. 



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