FLOWERS IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 49 



the shrubs add feet to their stature. Where the tall background 

 of foliage already exists, however, the hollyhock is adorable in 

 groups against it; but it should be used in small groups in the 

 small garden — three to five in a group. From hollyhocks for- 

 ward, here is a list of perennial plants that may well find place in 

 a little garden's informal border: Hardy asters, heleniums, heli- 

 anthuses, delphiniums, thermopsis, aconites, for the taller spe- 

 cies; gypsophilas, Shasta daisies, veronicas, columbines, for the 

 middle foreground; while, for the very front of such a border, 

 there are these: hardy alyssums, hardy candytuft, hardy pinks, 

 heucheras; that pretty bell-flower — Campanula carpatica; 

 stachys, nepeta, lavender, where soil and climate permit, and 

 just behind these some of the sedums or stonecrops. 



Here is a wealth of subjects; but these are but a part, the 

 slightest suggestion, of the things at hand. And my advice would 

 be, not to start as most practical writers suggest, with the best- 

 known types of some of these perennial plants. I should begin 

 with some of the less familiar varieties, whose hardy qualities, of 

 course, shall have been proved for the locality; although in jus- 

 tice to the general subject I must quote some recently published 

 words of Miss Jekyll's. "A long life of gardening and many 

 years of garden-designing have taught me that the simplest ways 

 are always the best, and the old favorite flowers are the most 

 lovable." I shall refer again to the topic of newer plants, however, 

 specifying some of my own preferences; meanwhile the manner 

 of use of perennial plants shall be given a little attention. 



Suppose now that the little garden is to consist of these in- 

 formal borders of hardy plants. Suppose that the very incom- 

 plete list above be taken as an elementary one. Twenty subjects 

 are given in the list. Taking these one by one, in the hardy asters 

 or Michaelmas daisies, for example, it would be simple to say, 

 "I will have here, of course, the New England aster." This 

 s 



