THE HARDY BORDER 



with the very tallest growers in the rear, the 

 effect of a bank of flowers and foliage can be 

 secured. This the illustration clearly shows. 



Shrubbery can be used in connection with 

 perennials with most satisfactory results. This, 

 as the reader will see, was done on the grounds 

 from which the picture was taken. Here we have 

 a combination which cannot fail to afford pleas- 

 ure. I would not advise any home-maker to con- 

 fine his border to plants of one class. Use shrubs 

 and perennials together, and scatter annuals here 

 and there, and have bulbs all along the border's 

 edge. 



I want to call particular attention to one thing 

 which the picture under consideration emphasizes 

 very forcibly, and that is — ^the unstudied infor- 

 mality of it. It seems to have planned itself. It 

 is like one of Nature's fence-corner bits of gar- 

 dening. 



For use in the background we have several 

 most excellent plants. The Delphinium — Lark- 

 spur — grows to a height of seven or eight feetj 

 in rich soU, sending up a score or more of stout 

 stalks from each strong clump of roots. Two 

 or three feet of the upper part of these stalks 

 will be solid with a mass of flowers of the richest, 

 most intense blue imaginable, I know of no 



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