THE MIXED BORDER 39 



an easy matter to keep a mixed border well-furnished 

 throughout most months of the year, and to avoid unsightly 

 gaps, but there are always ways of doing it, and even begin- 

 ners should not be afraid of facing this fact, and of thinking 

 out ways or contriving methods so as to have as few empty 

 places as may be. There are some common-sense considera- 

 tions that will be a guide to the choice of plants to use. The 

 first and most obvious is that the plant must be in itself 

 handsome and somewhat showy. The next and one of the 

 most important, is that it should remain a good while in 

 flower. Plants that are in flower a few days only and then 

 are done are of little use in the mixed border, unless their 

 foliage is unusually handsome and persistent, in which case 

 this is so valuable a quality that it may redeem the plant. 



The choice of kinds being decided on, the way in which 

 they are arranged then becomes the matter of chief impor- 

 tance. It seems a natural arrangement to use the creeping 

 and short-growing plants in front, and the next in stature 

 behind them, and the tall ones at the back. This is obviously 

 a good general rule, but if not varied with judicious excep- 

 tions the result will be very monotonous. Now and then some 

 of the tall backward groups should break forward. Think 

 of the way in which the lateral spurs of a mountain chain 

 descend into the valley or plain. They all do come down 

 to the level, but in how varied and beautiful a way. Think 

 of this and then think of the dull and ugly slope of a slate 

 roof, and then think of your border and apply the lesson. 



Then try and get hold of some definite scheme of colour- 

 ing in order to get richness and brilliancy with dignity. It 

 saves much trouble and puzzling at planting-time to have 

 a regular scheme of simple progression of colour from end 

 to end, so that if you have a yellow-flowered thing to plant 

 you put it in the yellow place and so on. In no way can 

 you get so much real power of colour, by which is meant 

 strength, richness, and brilliancy, as by beginning very 

 quietly at the ends of the borders with cool bluish foliage 

 and flowers of tender colouring, white, pale blue, and palest 

 sulphur yellow, and even with these palest pink, beginning 

 quite piano, then feeling the way to full, and from that to 

 stronger yellows ; then by a gradual crescendo to rich orange, 

 and from that to the forte and fortissimo of scarlets and strong 

 blood-crimsons, and then again descending in the scale of 

 strength to the pale and tender colouring. 



In other parts of the garden you may have incidents of 

 brilliant contrast, which are especially desirable in the case 



