ON LAYING OUT. 



19 



Wherever creeping flowering plants can live, let them adorn every 

 nook and corner, stem, wall, and post ; they are elegant in ap- 

 pearance, and many of them, particularly clematis, are delicious 

 in fragrant scent. 



If flowers are planted in round or square plots, the same rule 

 applies in arranging them. The tallest must be placed in the 

 center, but I recommend a lady to banish sunflowers and holly- 

 hocks from her plots, and consign them to broad borders against 

 a wall, or in clumps of three and three, as a screen against the 

 north, or against any unsightly object. Their large roots draw 

 so much nourishment from the ground, that the lesser plants suf- 

 fer, and the soil becomes quickly exhausted. Like gluttons, they 

 should feed alone, or their companions will languish in starvation, 

 and become impoverished. The wren cannot feed with the vul- 

 ture. 



The soutli end or corner of a moderate flower garden should 

 be fixed upon for the erection of a root house, which is not an 

 expensive undertaking, and which forms a picturesque as well as 

 a most useful appendage to a lady's parterre. Thinnings of 

 plantations, which are everywhere procured at a very moderate 

 charge, rudely shaped and nailed into any fancied form, may 

 supply all that is needful to the little inclosure ; and a thatch of 

 straw, rushes, or heather, will prove a sure defense to the roof 

 and back. There, a lady may display her taste by the beauty of 

 the flowers which she may train through the rural frame-work. 

 There, the moss-rose, the jessamine, the honeysuckle, the convol- 

 vulus, and many other bright and beautiful flowers, may escape 

 and cluster around her, as she receives rest and shelter within 

 their graceful lattice-work. There, also, may be deposited the 

 implements of her vocation ; and during the severe weather, its 

 warm precincts will protect the finer kinds of carnations, pinks, 



