SHRUB AND FLOWER BORDERS 243 



group of it come right through to the lawn, and 

 also stretch away back into the woodland. In our 

 southern counties, in sheltered places, where the 

 ground is cool and moist, and at the same time 

 well drained, nothing can be better than Hydrangeas. 

 Other softer plants for the same treatment would be 

 the fine Nicotiana sylvestris, and for earlier in the 

 year White Foxglove, and even before that Verbascum 

 olympicum. Lilium auratum is also superb in such 

 places, and Polygonum Sieboldi and others of this fine 

 race of autumn-blooming plants. If some of the 

 shrubs at the edge of the grass, such as Azaleas, have 

 beautiful colour at more than one time of the year, 

 both at the flowering time and in autumn blaze of 

 foliage, two seasons of beauty are secured. 



Hardy Ferns are undeservedly neglected as plants 

 to group about the feet of shrubs ; some of the 

 bolder kinds, as the Male Fern and the Lady Fern, 

 are charming as a setting to the Lilies that love cool, 

 shady wood edges. 



If shrubbery edges were planned with a view to 

 good effect both far and near, what capital com- 

 panies of plants could be put together. As one 

 such example, let us suppose a cool spot, with peaty 

 or light vegetable soil, planted in the front with 

 Skimmia and hardy Ferns, Funkia grandiflora, and 

 Lilium rubellum. A little farther back would come 

 Lilium Brownii, then a group of Kalmias and Lilium 

 auratum. One carefully-planted scheme such as this 

 would lead to others of the same class, so that the 

 quantities of grand shrubs and plants that are only 



