CHAPTER XIV 



THE OliD-FASHIONED GARDEN 



The old-fashioned garden of hardy perennials, with 

 its rows of hollyhocks, its beds edged with spice pinks, 

 its Sweet Williams and none-so-pretty has all but 

 disappeared from the village home, giving place to 

 the conventional bed of cannas, salvias or geraniums, 

 but is appearing in a much developed, glorified form 

 in the country homes of the well-to-do, few of which 

 are to-day without their old-fashioned or "grand- 

 mother's garden." In some of these gardens the 

 floral display rivals in perfection of bloom and glow 

 of color any achievement of the showy bedding plants, 

 many of the perennial flowers — ^larkspurs, foxgloves, 

 Canterbury bells and the like — ^being grown in pots 

 in cool greenhouses until ready to burst into bloom, 

 when they are planted out to take the place of hardier 

 perennials which have but that day finished their 

 season of bloom. In this way an unbroken succession 

 of bloom is produced, but it seems to me that the real 

 spirit of the perennial garden is lost, for the deep, 

 underlying principle of the perennial garden is per- 



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