96 FLOWER GARDENING 
more or less naturalistic fashion, the rule in ques- 
tion need occasion no complete’ replanting for a 
long time. This is avoided by removing alternate 
plants, or one here and there, as the colony be- 
comes crowded. In some instances the plants may 
be left in the same number, but the individual size 
reduced by cutting off portions with a trowel— 
which may be accomplished without lifting ‘the 
plant from the ground. Peonies are an exception 
to the rule; they should be planted two feet or 
more apart, as they dislike frequent disturbance. 
Perennials usually are planted for permanent ef- 
fects, but there is a growing tendency to use some 
of those that bloom in the spring and very early 
in the summer as bedding plants. Seedlings or 
small plants raised from cuttings are bedded out 
in the autumn, after the summer flowers have come 
to the end of their tether, and the year following, 
directly the height of bloom is past, they are rooted 
out and either thrown into the compost heap or 
divided and placed in nursery rows. This is the 
plan of Belvoir Castle, where every spring there 
is a superb display of bedded-out perennials on 
a scale that may be imagined from the fact that 
the annual consumption of aubrietias alone is some 
seven thousand. 
Such a temporary use of perennials within the 
limits of parterre formality and the set designs 
of park flower beds is quite common in England. 
The example is one that might well be emulated 
in the United States, where, aside from the most 
