House & Garden's 



BUILDING 



THE 



HARDY 



BORDER 



From These Selections of Herbaceous Perennials One Can Have 

 A Gorgeous Display Each Year 



NO scheme of garden buildini:; is at once 

 so effective and so easily maintained as 

 a hardv border. Perennial plants need seldom 

 to be renewed; in fact, it sooner becomes neces- 

 sary to find an outlet for the overflow than to 

 set in new plants. This overflow, if one has 

 started out with choice named varieties, has a 

 commercial value. A fuller satisfaction, how- 

 ever, is discovered when one finds that there 

 are enough plants to give a\vay. For isn't 

 at least half the joy of pos.'^ession the pleas- 

 ure of sharing your abundance with an- 

 other? Moreover, in the herbaceous plant- 

 ing there is scarcely a dull moment. Growth 

 starts with the earliest hint of warm weather 

 and continues almost until snow flies. Dur- 

 ing the first few weeks we have the interest 

 of rapidly developing plants. From the 

 time the earliest flowers come, in April or 

 May, there is a succession of bloom until 

 late fall. 



The garden lover looks forward to these 

 recurring seasons as she anticipates the 

 visit of an old friend. Association comes 

 to hover about them, as about old books and 

 the old haunts that one frequents. For the 

 mpre prosaic there is the scientific intere't 

 in comparing the growth and performance 

 of one year with another. By all means 

 keej) a note book. 



The most effective location for such a 

 planting is, probably, along the far edge 

 of the lawn, where it will jje viewed mainly 

 from the house. Such a border ma\' be 

 about the foundations of the house, though 

 this is of all locations the least desirable as 

 it will not be seen to advantage from the 

 windows of the house. A backyard is a 



good situation, particularly if one can run the 

 border about the yard and can spare ground 

 for a bit of green, be it never so small, in the 

 center. 



There is nothing more charming than a walk 

 between two borders, the double border of 

 English gardens, a feature of endless possi- 

 bilities which we in .America neglect almost 



The beautiful, creamy, white - flowered 

 dwarf phlox Tapis Blanc is without a rival 

 for iti place in the very front of the border 



altogether. This t)pe of border, however, al- 

 lows a different planting than the more usual 

 single border, for in this case less thought need 

 be given to its effectiveness at a distance. One 

 might almost characterize the planting as more 

 intimate, for it is to be seen from near at hand, 

 and the interest is more likely to be busied 

 with single specimens than with the broad 

 effect of the whole. It is this broad 

 effect that should always be kept in mind 

 when i)lanning and executing the single 

 Ijorder. 



The first principle to remember is that 

 the best results are always to be obtained 

 by simple and broad treatment. That it is 

 better to paint from a simple palette, with 

 a minimum of color mixing, is a ma.xim 

 equally good for the painter and gardener. 

 In either case, we are making a picture. 

 The problem of the border is complicated 

 by the fact that it is a series of pictures we 

 must ])lan for. 



Growth in a border starts, of course, 

 simultaneously with that of the grass and 

 the leaves on the trees. This early growth 

 shows a variety of light, delicate greens and 

 reddish browTis that not only are beautiful 

 in themselves, but have great diversity in 

 habit of growth and te.xture and shape of 

 leaf. 



The earliest flowering plant is the lu;)in. 

 Now the lupin (Polyphyllus, the perennial 

 variety) comes in white, pink and blue. 

 The white is a flower of exquisite purity 

 and grace. The blue, however, runs to red- 

 dish tones and the usual pink lupin rather 

 suggests lavender. There is a recently in- 

 troduced lupin of a purer pink that, in 



Inspector Elpel, a 

 late flowering 

 phlox, blooms well 

 i n I September, 

 when the fall as- 

 ters begin. This 

 view and the 

 others are of the 

 garden of John L. 

 Rea, at Pitts- 

 burgh, N. Y., who 

 also contributes 

 the text 



