HARD} 



PEREXXIAL PLANTS. 



plants — that is, informal beds cut out of the grass of the lawn. Of course, hardy plant- do 

 not lend themselves to this treatment, and it is one of their greatest merits that they do 

 not. Better no flowers at all than the lawn should be cut up in formal beds for their 

 accommodation. 



"An objection often urged against hardy plants is their short duration of bloom, but 

 this really is one of their greatest merits. Let us consider the garden that depends exclu- 

 sively upon bedding plants for its decoration. It is usually the first of June before they 

 can be planted, and it is well into July before they are effective; often by the end of Septem- 

 ber they are killed by frost, and every day during their short season of three months they 

 are as unchanging in appearances as the carpets in our houses, and about as interesting. 



' On the contrary, the well-planned and well-planted garden of hardy plants begins 

 its season with earliest spring and terminates it not with the first light frost of fall, but 

 when November brings some real winter weather, and then only goes to rest to delight us 

 afresh with the coming of another spring. Almost every day throughout its long season 

 the hardy garden is changing with the changes of the season, something new is coming 

 into bloom, and before it becomes monotonous its season is over and its place taken by 

 some other flower equally beautiful and interesting, but entirely different. Our garden is 

 never tiresome, its past is a pleasant memory, its future a delightful anticipation and its 

 bloom an accurate calendar of the seasons." 



The foregoing was stated over ten years ago and great changes have since taken place; 

 but there is no disguising the fact that today Hardy Perennials are by no means so gener- 

 ally planted as their many 

 merits entitle them to be. 

 In other words, a great many, 

 who might enjoy these most 

 interesting of all flowers, 

 are not fully awake to their 

 best interests. 



Mr. C. S. Harrison, in 

 his Peony Manual, writes: 

 "Is it not strange that in 

 fitting up a home, one is so 

 lavish on the furnishings and 

 so parsimonious on the out- 

 side adornment? I have 

 known a man with large and 

 beautiful grounds and a home 

 that cost thousands, to throw 

 up his hands in horror at 

 having to pay forty dollars 

 for choice trees, shrubs and 

 flowers for the lawn. You 

 build a costly house and the 

 moment you enter it, it begins to depreciate in value. You fill your yard with choice 

 things, and they begin to increase. There is a gold mine there, work it and vou will be 

 rich in the beauty it gives. Don't be content with a single flower. Get masses of them. 

 A lady came for some Phloxes; she wanted three for her town home and three for the 

 farm of one hundred and sixty acres. Poor things ! What a task those three flowers 

 had in brightening a large farm. Three hundred would have been nearer the thing." 



In a conversation on garden and lawn embellishment, the celebrated sculptor. Mr. 

 Waldo Story, a man well versed in landscape work, jokingly said: "People spend a million 

 and a half dollars for a house and then pay ten cents for their garden." 



Aside from lasting endurance, Hardy Perennials possess the valuable properties of 

 succeeding in almost every soil; they can be planted with pleasure and profit in grounds of 

 the most limited extent, (a few square feet can be made to yield a bouquet every day from 

 April until December); and results come so quickly— in a few weeks, at most, from plant- 

 ing. It should not be overlooked that the flowers of a large number of kinds remain in 

 good condition for a long time after being gathered, and their long, graceful stems, togeth- 

 er with their delightful fragrance, render them the choicest flowers for decorating the din- 

 ing table, the parlor or the reception room, or for adding cheerfulness to the sickroom. 



