THE HARDY FLOWER BORDER 57 



Pea has been four or five years planted and the Clematis 

 seven. They cannot be hurried ; indeed, in my garden 

 it is difficult to get the Clematis to grow at all. But 

 good gard ening means patience and dogged deter- 

 mination. There must be many failures and losses, 

 but by always pushing on there will also be the reward 

 of success. Those who do not know are apt to think 

 that hardy flower gardening of the best kind is easy. 

 It is not easy at all. It has taken me half a hfetime 

 merely to find out what is best worth doing, and a 

 good slice out of another half to puzzle out the ways 

 of doing it. 



In addition to these three plants that I grow over 

 one another I am now adding a fourth — the September- 

 blooming Clematis Flammula. It must not be supposed 

 that they are just lumped one over another so that the 

 under ones have their leafy growths smothered. They 

 are always being watched, and, bit by bit, the earlier 

 growths are removed as soon as their respective plants 

 are better without them. 



Then there is the way of pulling down tall plants 

 whose natural growth is upright. At the back of the 

 yellow part of the border are some plants of a form of 

 Helianthus orgyalis, trained down, as described later 

 at p. 72. But other plants can be treated in the same 

 way ; the tall Rudbeckia Golden Glow, and Dahlias 

 and Michaelmas Daisies. The tall Snapdragons can 

 also be pulled down and made to cover a surprising 

 space of bare ground with flowering side-shoots. 



•As it is still impossible to prevent the occurrence of 

 a blank here and there, or as the scene, viewed as a 



