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MIXED BORDERS AND ROCK GARDENS. 

 By S. W. Fitzherbert. 



OF late years there have been innumerable accessions to the rank's of hardy 

 flower growers, a cult that is slowly but surely ousting the inartistic and 

 expensive system of " bedding-out," w hich, w ith its carpet-patterns and crude 

 combinations of flat colour, held sway for so long a period in our English gardens. 

 At one time, not so many wears ago, few were the gardens, except those of cottagers, that 

 were not affected by this undesirable innovation, though, even when the bedding craze was 

 at its height, there were examples to be found, attached, probably, to some old manor 

 house or grange, where the restful reign of the old-fashioned favourites had continued 

 unbroken by the incursion of the more showy invaders. Little by little, however, the taste 

 for hardy flowers has again come into vogue, and now there is scarcely a garden, large 

 or small, that does not contain a "mixed border" and a certain number of rock plants. 

 The term " herbaceous border," although it has been severely criticised as being an 

 infelicitous title, probably serves better than any other to denote the nature of the majority 

 of the denizens of such a bed, for these are mainly composed of plants that die down 

 during a certain portion of the year, and after a period of rest throw up fresh foliage 

 and flower stems. One of the first questions asked by the novice w ho contemplates the 

 addition of an herbaceous border to his or her garden is "What shall 1 plant to have the 

 bed gay during the spring, summer, and autumn ? " and therefore it may be as well at 

 once to admit that at no time is the whole border, throughout its length and breadth, a 

 blaze of colour, since the extent and disposition of its tints change with the changing 

 months, as the varied breadths of flowers break into blossom or lose their effectiveness, and 

 thus provide a picture infinitely more beautiful to the artistic eye than is afforded by the 

 level and wearying sameness of bedding plants. 



Care should be taken in planting the herbaceous border to avoid all appearance of 

 formality, since formality is antagonistic to the picturesque. The characteristic of Nature's 

 beauty is unconventionally, but formality is artifice not art, which "itself is Nature." 

 For this reason any planting in lines or patterns should be rigidly discountenanced, and the 



