14 MY GARDEN 



The best effect is arrived at in the borders by mass- 

 ing the plants in irregular groups of one kind, the size of 

 the group to be determined by the length and breadth of 

 the bed or border, and there must be some attention 

 paid to gradation in the relative heights of the different 

 groups. Thus, a group of some eigh teen-inch plants is 

 badly placed in front of one attaining a height of seven 

 feet! In the main, tall plants should be kept at the 

 back, those of medium height in the centre, and dwarf 

 and creeping things along the front, but one need not 

 adhere too consistently to this rule but rather strive for 

 a rolling contour plains, foothills, and mountains, if one 

 may use so gigantic a simile the highlands creeping out 

 over the plains and the plains reaching back among the 

 hills. Spaces may be left here and there for patches of 

 long-flowering annuals, and these may also be used to 

 fill the places of such hardy plants as may have died 

 during the winter. 



There has been much written of late as to how to keep 

 the entire garden in full bloom from early spring until 

 frost, and varied and vain were my attempts in the days 

 of my novitiate to accomplish this feat that I now feel 

 would be of doubtful desirability even were it possible. 

 In our climate where the importunities of the sun rushes 

 our plants from youth to a precocious maturity and on 

 to early oblivion, the blossoming period of the individual 

 plants is so much shorter than in climates of moister 

 atmosphere and less torrid summers that to keep all 



