COLOUR IN MY GARDEN 



in their appearance as soon as flowering is accomplished. 

 They go to seed most untidily, quite lose their figures, and 

 make no effort at all to grow old with dignity and grace, so 

 that theirs is another case to be looked to in achieving our 

 ideal of a garden border fine and full and freshly luxuriant 

 throughout the season. 



These bare and unkempt places are very distressing and 

 mar the fine effect of the plants still in the prime of their 

 blossoming. To prevent their occurrence is the most em- 

 barrassing problem with which the gardener is confronted. 

 Each of us, however, who goes daily about his beds and 

 borders, bestowing upon his flower tenantry the sort of 

 loving inspection that enables him to foresee and understand 

 their shortcomings, weaknesses, and defections, cannot fail to 

 find out for himself many ways of meeting and solving this 

 problem. My own little artifices are very simple and obvious 

 but withal effective and may help some beginning gardener 

 past those disheartening stages when the blank spaces seem 

 so much more numerous than the full and luxuriant ones. 



To attack these difficulties in the order of their occurrence 

 we have first, the desertion of spring bulbs after they have 

 flowered. Ordinarily we plant these in irregular groups 

 near the front of the borders. If, in our enthusiasm, we 

 want the joy of a dozen or so Daffodils in one assemblage 

 or a broad space showing the incomparable colour of the 

 little Grape Hyacinth, so well named Heavenly Blue, we 

 must prepare ourselves for a subsequent bareness of the 

 same dimensions, as grievously afflicting to our gardening 

 souls as the earlier flowering was sweet. But all bulbs 

 submit cheerfully to a ground cover of some lightly rooting 



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