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THE GARDEN AT LILLESH ALL. 



HARDY FLOWERS. 



TO praise the hardy flowers which till the garden with beauty throughout the year 

 is surely needless ; but many useful lessons may be gathered from the 

 remarks concerning this beautiful race. It tells the season of the year as 

 the emblems of each month open out to the sun. Not many years ago the 

 garden was the reflection of a few gaudy exotics, set out in prim beds or banked up into 

 little dumpling-like mounds, as interesting as a graveyard, and unchanged from planting 

 time until the first breath of frost turned them to corruption. This flaming colour made by 

 a few set plants is not got without a large outlay, and the wintering of such plants is an 

 unnecessary cost. 



One turns wistfully to the cottage garden in which the white Pinks creep to the 

 garden paths and the Roses garland the porch, flinging their fragrant clusters into the 

 little latticed windows, through which floats the perfume of cherished flowers. Hollyhocks 

 rise above the fence, and Sweet Williams spread into groups of colour, overshadowed 

 may be by some tall Larkspur, lifting its sheafs of blossom as blue as a summer sky. Artless 

 grouping comes by the free growth of the plants themselves — here a Lilac bush with bulbous 

 flowers clustering near to it, there the Mock Orange, burdened with fragrant blossom in 

 late summer —teaches the lesson that in free masses a flower tells best its sweet tale. Happily, 

 an increasing love is apparent for this race, and better ways of planting are adopted, making 

 the perennials occupy their rightful place in the garden, not restricting them merely to the mixed 

 border. Use them in the beds, which in many gardens still are filled with "Geraniums," 

 Lobelias, and a few things repeated until one is heartily sick of their strong colours. When 



