46 THE LITTLE GARDEN 



height, breadth, and greedy stretching-out of roots, there is 

 another story. One thing here should be insisted upon : as little 

 planting as possible of flowers at the front of the house. Keep 

 all colors so far as possible for the back — concentrate there, and 

 give yourselves and your guests the daily, hourly pleasure of 

 surprise, of concentration of effect. In this matter I would not 

 say that a few young things of the spring should be absent from 

 the doorstep, or that flowering shrubs of a quiet order are wrbng 

 there; but I have stood so often, after ringing a bell, trying not 

 to see the thick and messy crimson rambler, which ramps about 

 the little posts of a yellow house-porch, that I would spare others 

 my experience. The safest plan is — except where a studied 

 effect of gayety is in place as one approaches a house-door — few 

 or no blooming plants at the front. The scarlet sage has, fortu- 

 nately, not taken hold in the suburbs or towns of the Middle 

 West, as a red flag waved before the approaching guest. Luckily 

 we were born too late for this. But still you may see this mon- 

 strous use of an innocent flower not far from cosmopolitan New 

 York itself; and while it is an extreme warning, it is yet a warning 

 to those who believe in quiet beauty for the small place. Of the 

 canna and caladium for such spots, I will not speak. Let bygones 

 be bygones. 



For flowers in the main rear part of the little place, one turns 

 first, of course, to perennials — those plants whose very name 

 spells economy and endurance, improvement, all the sturdy vir- 

 tues underlying good looks. For the proper placing of these 

 plants against a background of shrubs, the indicating line of such 

 a border will be the line of the shrub-planting itself. This will 

 probably be an undulating line. There will be little bays and 

 peninsulas of green shrub-foliage planned along fences or walls, 

 or even before hedges, if hedges are used; though it is likely that 

 where the trimmed hedge is used, formal lines for flowers will 



