10 FLOWER GARDENING 
benas or some of the creeping perennials, as ground 
covers, and lilies or other tall flowers will have to 
be relied on to piece out the season. The ground 
covers can stand for several years if the soil is 
very heavily and deeply fertilized at the start. 
Or there are the numerous so-called roses which 
properly enough might go in. Lavender, where 
it proves hardy, is very beautiful planted with 
China roses. 
Better for the most a garden with roses, or else 
a little place apart—too unpretentious to be des- 
ignated a rose garden. A great many of the 
choicest roses are not particularly decorative and 
may just as well be grown in rows on the edge of 
the kitchen garden—where they can be cut with 
long stems and in no fear of color robbery. 
An iris or a phlox garden is a safer venture. 
And if stock is propagated for a few years before 
the definite planting, the expense need be very 
little; possibly nothing at all, if there are kind 
neighbors. Nor is there the great maintenance and 
renewal expense of a well-ordered rose garden. 
The iris garden may be made a beautiful place 
the year round by using no other flowers. The 
bloom of Iris pumila, Iris cristata, the German, 
Spanish, English, Siberian and Japan irises and the 
blue and yellow flags will be continuous from April 
into July, but before and after some of the foliage 
will be attractive. If the rest of the planting be 
small evergreens, with a bit of water and some 
rocks, there will never be the scraggliness that a 
