64 FLOWER GARDENING 
the inevitable exceptions that make the rule. There 
are instances, as in Hyde Park, London, of beds in 
the simplest geometrical forms being placed in the 
lawn near the edge of it with an effect really 
beautiful and not out of keeping with the general 
scheme; but all this is on a large scale. Again, 
islands of shrubbery, that are virtually converted 
into flower beds by a liberal planting of perennials 
or bedding plants, are to be seen. 
For the small home grounds, above all, the bor- 
der, or series of borders, is infinitely to be preferred 
in any but very exceptional circumstances. Borders 
adjust themselves to every line of a place, no matter 
with what irregularity it is marked; beds rarely 
do. 
Then, too, borders are very much easier in the 
making, while in the upkeep the labor does not 
begin to be so much as with a bed that offers any- 
thing more serious than a right angle. The 
thought of laboriously cutting a crescent in the 
lawn, and then planting it, trimming it again and 
again and keeping the grass edge just right, that 
always there may be exact symmetry, is enough to 
drive such an idea out of one’s head. 
A border is technically a narrow flower bed— 
that is to say, one that is narrow in proportion to its 
width. Less precisely, but within proper usage, it 
is any bordering bed. Though usually much 
elongated, it would not be out of place to call a 
large square bed a border if it had a path on one 
or two sides of it. The simplest and commonest 
