HINTS ON FLOWER-GARDENS. 7 



" God might have made the earth bring forth 



Enough for great and small, 

 The oak tree and the cedar tree, 

 "Without a flower at all. 



" Our outward life requires them not 



Then wherefore had they birth ? 

 To minister delight to man, 

 To beautify the earth. 



" To comfort man, to whisper hope 



Whene'er his faith is dim ; 

 For who so careth for the flowers, 

 Will much more care for him ! " 



Now, there are many genuine lovers of flowers who have at- 

 tempted to make flower-gardens in the simplicity of their hearts 

 believing it to be the easiest thing in the world to arrange so many 

 beautiful annuals and perennials into " a living knot of wonders " 

 who have quite failed in realizing all that they conceived of and 

 fairly expected when they first set about it. It is easy enough to 

 draw upon paper a pleasing plan of a flower-garden, whether in the 

 geometric, or the natural, or the " gardenesque " style, that shall 

 satisfy the eye of the beholder. But it is far more difficult to plant 

 and arrange a garden of this kind in such a way as to afford a 

 constant succession of beauty, both in blossom and leaf. Indeed, 

 among the hundreds of avowed flower-gardens which we have 

 seen in different parts of the country, public and private, we cannot 

 name half-a-dozen which are in any considerable degree satisfactory. 



The two leading faults in all our flower-gardens, are the want 

 of proper selection in the plants themselves, and a faulty arrange- 

 ment, by which as much surface of bare soil meets the eye as is 

 clothed with verdure and blossoms. 



Regarding the first effect, it seems to us that the entire beauty 

 of a flower-garden almost depends upon it. However elegant or 

 striking may be the design of a garden, that design is made poor 

 or valueless, when it is badly planted so as to conceal its merits, or 

 filled with a selection of unsuitable plants, which, from their coarse 

 or ragged habit of growth, or their remaining in bloom but a short 



