GARDENS NEAR THE SEA 



the clear eye of experience gained from knowledge of 

 conditions during the last summer. 



In the spring, when plants are sprouting, the size 

 to which they grow is not fully realized, as in the 

 autumn, when they still stand tall and bushy, showing 

 that they monopolize a good deal of space. Neither 

 is the poignancy of color so clearly before the mind 

 in the days of spring as in the autumn, when perchance 

 a belated flower still lives to testify to its importance. 

 The imagination can see the perfected future of a 

 garden in the autumn infinitely better than it can in 

 the early spring days. 



The greater number of trees are successfully planted 

 in the autumn, eliminating always such ones of soft 

 wood as the magnolias, sweet gums, poplars, and wil- 

 lows, and also the beeches, birches, and oaks, although 

 belonging to the hard-wooded class. Azaleas, Japanese 

 snowballs, and hydrangeas, besides a few other shrubs, 

 are seldom planted by experts except in the spring, 

 while the great multitude of flowering shrubs have 

 identified themselves with autumn planting. Naturally 

 there are many successful exceptions to prove a complete 

 disregard to those rules. In the majority of cases, how- 

 ever, it is well to adhere to them closely. 



Many perennials, especially irises, lilies, phloxes, 

 larkspurs, and sweet williams, should be planted in the 

 autumn, which is also a fit time to divide and reset the 

 older ones of a garden. When this work is begun about 

 the middle of September, while the ground is still 

 warm, the root fibers of the plants take sufficient hold 

 of the soil to begin to grow before the advent of cold 



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