GARDENS NEAR THE SEA 



the hardy roses have faded. Indeed, this is a fitting 

 moment for these elfin flowers to come into the garden, 

 for earlier the bulbous plants, the roses, and some 

 perennials have made it gay and given enough flowers 

 to please the most exacting. 



One of the highly successful first-year gardens that 

 I have known had its plan perfected, and all its beds 

 and borders made, in the autumn. They were, besides, 

 deeply manured and built up with rich soil. In Sep- 

 tember and October, they were plentifully planted with 

 bulbs and perennials and given later a liberal covering 

 of litter for the winter. When spring came, the edges 

 of this garden were ready to hold innumerable plants, 

 while the interiors of the beds were filled with more 

 plants and strewn, where opportunity offered, with 

 annual seeds. The position of the plants that had 

 been set in the autumn had been carefully studied, and 

 when they sent up their sprouts it became an easy 

 matter to allot the spaces to the new plants and to the 

 annuals. 



During the winter, the soil of this garden had taken 

 its just position, and was free from such sinking and 

 packing as often retards growth. 



In design this garden was colonial, and while it held 

 most of the plants which made the old gardens beau- 

 tiful, it still gave space to a great many of the newer, 

 rarer species. It produced a succession of bloom most 

 delightful, something that was not expected of the 

 gardens of our grandmothers. After the spring and 

 early summer flowers of these gardens had passed, 

 many of them ceased to show color, or they pre- 



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