AUTUMN BEAUTY 129 



various sorts covers a long period, from August until 

 November, but September is their festival month. 

 They adapt themselves with supreme grace to any sort 

 of gardening, and it would be difficult to know how to 

 make an autumn garden beautiful without their aid. 

 Borders made up almost entirely of these flowers are 

 very lovely if one's garden is large enough to permit any 

 part of it being given up to a single season. I saw many 

 such borders splendidly carried out in England and in 

 Scotland. The gray-foliage plants, Lyme Grass, Lav- 

 ender Cotton, Artemisias, Nepeta, and Stachys lanata 

 are largely used with the Michaelmas Daisies with per- 

 haps a few buff-coloured Dahlias and Gladioli and 

 the strange mauve-pink of Sedum spectabile. Clematis 

 paniculata, grown on tall pea-brush and cut back se- 

 verely every year to prevent its growing too rampant, 

 is lovely grown at the back of such a border and allowed 

 to trail its fleecy bloom and later its strange, smoky seed 

 vessels about over the soft- coloured Asters. The gray- 

 foliage plants would need to be planted in generous 

 groups toward the front of the border, with dwarf 

 Asters in between and the wandlike branches of the 

 taller kinds brought forward here and there and tied to 

 low pea-brush. Pea-brush, by the way, is by far the 

 best staking to use for these flowers, as it allows them to 

 show all their natural grace. We put the brush in when 

 the plants are about two feet tall, arranging the Aster 

 branches so as to make the brush as inconspicuous as 



