86 FLOWER GARDENING 
and an annual top dressing of fine manure between 
the plants, the garden can be kept in good shape 
indefinitely. Sheep manure, which may be used 
sparingly for roses, is excellent for surface appli- 
cation and bone meal is worked into the soil with 
fine results. One of the best of commercial fer- 
tilizers for perennials is a mixture of bone, blood 
and potash; a peony will thank you for a handful 
of it in the spring. 
No hardy garden is made in a day, always ex- 
cepting the comparatively few products of carte 
blanche orders. Even when all laid out at once, 
the plantings call for a considerable amount of 
reshaping. Then again, some of the finest peren- 
nials refuse to be at their best for two or three 
years unless there is the unusual and extravagant 
expedient of making use of large clumps—which 
soon will have to be taken up and divided, as 
they are virtually ready for that when set out. 
The sensible plan is to make the hardy garden 
a vision of three or four years hence and com- 
promise with the springs, summers and autumns 
that come before. The plan in detail is this: 
Plant shrubs, roses, peonies and fraxinella far 
enough apart to allow for the maximum expan- 
sion. It is just as well, though less imperative, to 
follow the same rule with funkias, bleeding heart 
and Lythrum superbum. In the spaces between 
the plants grow little colonies of spring bulbs, to 
be followed by transplanted annuals, until the time 
comes when they are not needed; the bulbs can 
