36 THE NEW GARDENING 



quately furnished. Think of a table as a tree, a book 

 pedestal as a Rose pillar, and see how space in the garden 

 takes unto itself wings and flies away. 



I do not say that fifteen feet wide is the minimum for 

 a border, but it is little enough if trees and shrubs are to 

 be put in as well as herbaceous plants. Do not forget that 

 there is a fair alternative to a mean and skimpy border 

 it is to have none at all. 



We can do adorable things with a five-yard strip. We 

 can have graceful trees, flower-laden shrubs, beautiful 

 Rose pillars and lovely groups of perennials. The trees, 

 being standards, do not really take up much room; all 

 there is of them within six feet of the ground is a plain 

 stem an inch or two thick ; the branches and foliage are 

 away up in the air. It is otherwise with the shrubs. A 

 Weigela well grown (and there are few things more beau- 

 tiful than a healthy Weigela in full bloom) needs a full 

 six feet of ground space. Deutzias and Spiraeas want 

 almost as much. Every plant of a vigorous lot of Phloxes 

 demands a square yard. 



If the fifteen-feet border is to have two faces we cannot 

 do better than set the trees along the centre, alternately 

 with the Rose pillars. The space from tree to pillar may 

 be nine feet. The line of these combined features will 

 serve as a background, whichever side of the border we 

 are. At a point which forms the apex of a triangle with 

 each pair of trees and pillars, and about three feet in 

 front of them, we may set a shrub. Coming forward 

 another four feet, we may set at the apex of a triangle 

 between each pair of shrubs a group 6f one of the larger 

 herbaceous plants. Thus is the body of our border 

 formed. Along the front smaller things, such as bulbs, 

 Wallflowers, dwarf Snapdragons, Primroses, Violas and 

 annuals may be set. 



