FLOWER BORDER SPRING FLOWERS. 235 



mown hay. Soledago or golden-rod, with some of 

 the hundred varieties of campanula or bellflower, 

 monkshood yellow or blue, columbine, and per- 

 ennial larkspur growing seven feet in height, may 

 serve at distances, according to their size, for fore- 

 ground to the shrubbery. 



Verging towards the walk, a strip, say five feet 

 broad, running between the gravel and the shrubs, 

 and perhaps an equal breadth on the other side, for 

 fibrous perennials and bulbous roots, with spaces 

 here and there for the admission of annuals, de- 

 serves particular culture. If the soil has too much 

 clay, coal ashes will give it porosity and serve for 

 manure. They must be sifted, a labour that is not 

 lost to the economy of fuel; and nothing is more 

 useless to the ground than a cinder, or uglier on a 

 bed of flowers. Trenching is in all cases to be un- 

 derstood; and if the soil be dry, as stones cannot 

 be tolerated in the sowing of annuals, there is no 

 harm in sifting with wires one inch apart. It must 

 not be supposed that a sieve of such width trans- 

 mits stones of anything like a corresponding bulk; 

 neither does the acquired fineness cause any dam- 

 age, save in clays, which with raking and rains and 

 heat take on a coat like the plaster of a wall a 

 fault which a few cart loads of sand will correct. A 

 mixture of peatmoss is of service to the beautiful 

 varieties of rhododendron, the kalmais, and all 

 manner of heaths. 



With regard to a selection of flowers for the 

 borders so prepared, it were needless to give a 



