THE HARDY GARDEN 83 
Another point in favor of the hardy garden. 
There you see plants reach their full development, 
as nature intended them to be. From the first 
snowdrop to the last chrysanthemum, every plant 
pursues its natural course of life; you may ob- 
serve it mature and immature. On the other hand, 
bedding plants, such as the geranium, heliotrope 
and lantana, come into the garden in their youth 
and are cut down by the frost before the end of it. 
They are bedding plants at best. When one thinks 
of the geranium in subtropical California, the helio- 
trope in the Alameda of Gibraltar and the lantana~- 
running wild in Bermuda, all in the greater glory 
that nature meant to give them, their incomplete- 
ness in our northern gardens seems really very 
pitiful. 
Then there is the question of appropriateness, 
speaking more particularly of temperate climates. 
Hardy plants are natives of temperate zones, other- 
wise they would not be hardy. There is accord- 
ingly a certain fitness in their use. They seem 
to fall in with any landscape scheme and look as 
if they belonged there. A lily from Japan or a 
bleeding heart from China has the appearance of 
being at home in a Massachusetts garden, whereas 
Cuban palms or Arizona cacti, bedded out for the 
summer in pots, do not. This, of course, is going 
to extremes to institute a comparison. The idea 
is the fitness of hardy plants for the general note 
of home gardens of temperate zones. 
Seldom is a hardy garden literally, that is to 
