10 THE LITTLE GARDEN 



good. Shrubs may be planted in either spring or autumn. 

 Their requirements are a deep-dug, well-fertilized soil and some 

 covering of rather fresh manure about the roots for the first 

 winter after planting. A very excellent suggestion given in 

 "The Garden Guide" is this: for an immediate effect, shrubs 

 should be planted almost twice as closely as they are to stand 

 permanently. It is there advised to plant only part of one's 

 place the first year, and plant it thickly. By the time one is 

 ready to plant the other part, one can draw upon the beds first 

 planted for stock. Though I had not before seen such advice 

 given in print, it has always been my practice to move shrubs 

 frequently — my mistake being that I have usually let them go 

 too long. They were then leggy and unmanageable when taken 

 out from a crowd of their kind; not pretty enough to stand alone 

 anywhere, or even in the front of a border. 



To return to the main topic, however — the question between 

 formality and informality of plan. In Mrs. Asquith's much- 

 discussed autobiography, a witty man is mentioned who divides 

 his acquaintance into two classes, life-givers and life-takers. 

 Plants are the same. To my way of thinking, the formal plan 

 grows, and allows for life on the small place, especially on the fifty 

 by a hundred lot, while informal planting smothers it. Informal 

 grouping of shrubs means that the shears must never be applied 

 for cutting back, but only for thinning or pruning; it means that 

 flowers, as a rule, must be grown before, in front of, shrubs. 

 This is very well for a year or two, while shrubs are small; but 

 as they develop, they become in the ugliest degree life-takers. 

 Often have I seen, in my early gardening years, the finest flowers 

 fail before the advancing cruel roots of bush honeysuckle or of 

 mock orange. 



However, whether we advocate formal or informal plans, one 

 thing is needed in either case; and that is some line or border of 



