FLOWERS IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 53 



effect of design and of a generally ordered type is wanted, this is 

 one of the channels through which it can be secured. 



On pages 209 and 210 of the same excellent volume are two 

 of the most charming suggestions I have ever seen for formal 

 borders of hardy plants for succession of bloom and color arrange- 

 ment. In the first, delphinium, Madonna lilies, irises, columbines, 

 parrot tulips, hepaticas, and purple crocuses are the plants and 

 bulbs used ; in the second, hardy asters, tree peonies, montbretias, 

 peonies, pinks, and Darwin tulips are the subjects. If either of 

 these borders is taken as a model, and used on opposite sides of a 

 straight walk, the axis of the garden and the house, ending in a 

 good seat, a shelter, the whole framed in grass, with an enclosing 

 belt of well-grown shrubs, nothing could be better for a small 

 garden. Miss Agar's book contains capital advice on the princi- 

 ples of design. 



Economies of space, and beauties of pattern and color, to be 

 obtained from a formal arrangement of plants, being then ad- 

 mitted, let us consider annual flowers with which to "Broider 

 the ground in rich array." Annual flowers bring with them their 

 own best qualities of quick bloom, gay color, and a willingness to 

 cover speedily bare spots in the perennial border. No compari- 

 son can be drawn between annuals and perennials; each has its 

 own place and function, the one supplementing the other, not 

 supplanting it. Can any flower clothe the foreground of, say. 

 Delphinium belladonna with more charm and pretty contrast of 

 color than Verbena Beauty of Oxford, for example, or one of 

 the deep violet petunias, which cast such graceful branches to 

 the summer winds? To discuss the subject of annual flowers with 

 any degree of completeness would take more pages than are at 

 my disposal here. In a rapid survey of the material just now, a 

 list of fifty-odd kinds of annuals presented itself to my mind, and 

 this without including some of the less weU-known kinds begm- 



