A New and Better Style of Flower Bedding—By Henry Maxwell, “x: 
INSTEAD OF ANNUAL BOTHER AND EXPENSE WITH TENDER PLANTS WHY NOT USE HARDY 
PERENNIALS WHICH ARE NOW GROWN 
OME now, confess! You have just 
moved into a new place. Or the 
gardening mania strikes you at this time 
and generally lasts for about two weeks in the 
year! You were intending to cut a circle 
in the middle of the lawn and put in a bed 
of the usually accepted bedding plants. 
A lesson from Highland Park, Rochester, N. Y., 
showing the superiority of hardy perennials 
(Foxgloves) to annuals or tender plants for beddings 
in front of shrubs that are out of bloom 
But let me tell you of something that I think 
will give you a deal more satisfaction and 
will be cheaper in the end. The best thing 
you can do is to have a hardy border along 
one or both sides of your yard. The ideal 
plan is to have shrubs at the back and peren- 
nial flowers in front. Shrubs cost the most at 
the start and the great bulk of their bloom 
is confined to May and June, but they are 
the longest lived, require the least attention 
and make a noble background for perennial 
flowers as the accompanying pictures prove. 
The reasons why you don’t want a geomet- 
rical flower bed are these: A bed in the 
middle of the lawn makes the lawn seem 
smaller than it really is, whereas borders 
frame a home picture and make the grounds 
seem larger than they really are. Again, 
tender bedding plants are likely to be stiff, 
gaudy, monotonous and to suggest a public 
park or show place instead of a quiet home. 
Finally, you have the same expense over 
again every year, or else you must keep your 
geraniums in the cellar over winter and take 
cuttings of them in the spring. 
I grant you that bedding plants may give 
a better effect the first month or even the 
first year and that ordinary perennials will 
bloom only two weeks, whereas geraniums 
and cannas will flower for three months. 
But a hardy border has all these advantages: 
The plants do not have to be purchased 
or resown every year; they are permanent 
and will multiply so that you will have plenty 
to give away and exchange; a hardy border 
always has something new of interest every 
day, whereas bedding plants become tire- 
some ; you can always cut flowers for your 
friends without spoiling the general effect; 
you can have them for two months before 
it is safe to set out bedding plants and two 
months after frost has killed the cannas; the 
cost of maintenance is less; and last, but 
not least, the plants harmonize with the 
landscape instead of being obviously im- 
ported from the tropics. In short, bedding 
plants are best in public places; a hardy 
border is the best thing for the home. 
“But,” you will exclaim, “how can I 
start a hardy border as late as this?” Five 
years ago it was practically impossible to 
make a garden in June, or after hot weather 
had arrived. Now all that is changed. 
There is hardly any perennial flower you 
are likely to think of that cannot be secured 
from some of the nurserymen near the 
big cities who grow them in pots especially 
for summer delivery. Such plants may 
cost a little more than the field-grown, and 
they ought to, because they have required 
more care. Besides, you could not plant 
field-grown plants in June, whereas pot- 
grown plants will grow right ahead and 
bloom this year. 
One reason for this new opportunity 
is that the automobile brings more people 
to the nurseries than ever before. It is 
the fashionable thing now to visit nurseries 
after the spring rush is over. The nur- 
seryman has nothing to do then and is 
glad enough to have visitors. And in 
IN POTS ESPECIALLY FOR SUMMER PLANTING? 
floriculture it is a fact, as with many other 
luxuries, that the supply often creates the 
demand. You may read about a plant 
every year in the catalogues for ten years, 
without being tempted, but when you see 
how beautiful the real thing is you buy it on 
the spot. It is a common thing for people 
to see something they need at their summer 
home and take the plant right back with 
them in their motor car. When you come 
to think of it, this sort of thing should 
always have been so. We ought to be able 
to get any plant we want at any time. It 
isa sign that weare growing up. Of course, 
it would be foolish to buy now the April or 
May blooming species, such as columbines 
and German iris, and I should not get 
any peonies now because they can be better 
planted in September. For this year’s 
effects I should say the best choice would 
be as follows. : 
For June, foxgloves, Sweet Williams and 
Coreopsis lanceolata. 
For July, larkspurs, hollyhocks, and 
Japanese iris. 
For August, phlox, veronica, Stokesia, 
and yucca. 
For September, Japanese anemone, grace- 
ful sunflower (Helianthus orgyalis) and 
sneezeweed (Heleniwm autumnale, var. su- 
perbum). 
For October and November, pompon 
-chrysanthemums. 
So far I have been contrasting the flower 
bed with the hardy border. Now I want to 
show how the exacting requirements of bed- 
ding can be met by certain hardy perennials 
which will give more refreshing and dignified 
effect than tender plants and at less loss. 
“A hardy border is better for a home than beds of tender plants.’’ Im this case the white-flowered 
bushes are deutzias. The perennial edging plant is the ragged robin (Lychnis Flos-cuculi) with double 
pink flowers, each petal being cut into four strips 
27s) 
omer 
Se ay 
er ee 
See aoe 
