IN THE MAKING 15 



parts of the garden in bloom at all seasons would re- 

 quire so immense a variety of plants that a most spotty 

 and restless effect would be the result, and such exact 

 knowledge of the plants would be necessary that few 

 amateurs could hope to acquire it. A few lovely pic- 

 tures for each season is about all we can hope to accom- 

 plish successfully in the garden devoted to herbaceous 

 perennials and designed to be beautiful for six months of 

 the year. These pictures may vary in number and size 

 according to the dimensions of the garden they are to 

 adorn, and may be made up of groups of two or more 

 kinds of plants blooming together and for about the 

 same length of time. Of course close observation, 

 study, and experience are required to so create these 

 blossoming groups that at no time is the garden without 

 an effective number; and nothing is more helpful than to 

 keep an exact record of the blossoming periods of such 

 plants as are where we can observe them. 



Garden colour scheming has become something like a 

 craze we talk colour schemes, write colour schemes, 

 read them, and try to create them. Like all obsessions, 

 this charming pastime is in grave danger of being done 

 to death, of degenerating by means of extreme precise- 

 ness of finish into something not so far from the carpet 

 bedding, which we, in our boasted enlightenment, pro- 

 fess to despise. A mosaic or tapestry-like effect does 

 not seem to me what we want in our home gardens, but a 

 gracious blending and contrasting of lovely elements 



