148 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF GARDENING. 



varied plants should be grouped in informal masses. Here and there groups may be allowed 

 to mingle where they approach one another, the taller-growing subjects of which one section is 

 composed becoming less closely set as they approach the confines of their allotted space, 

 and throwing up their lofty flow er spikes at greater intervals as they advance in scattered 

 formation into the ground occupied by the neighbouring dwarfer-habited group. Narrow 

 borders, naturally, do not admit of the same latitude in the disposition of the plants as 

 is afforded by those of greater width, but even in the former the breadth of the groups 

 should not be unduly limited, or the effect of foreshortening, when the border is viewed from 

 the end, will give it the appearance of being planted in lines. For this 

 better, in very narrow beds, to allow one gi 

 to back rather than to divide 



reason 



roup to occupy the entire space from 



it is 

 front 



the width between two 

 genera. The practice of 

 dotting plants singly about 

 the surface of the herbaceous 

 border is one that cannot 

 be too strongly condemned, 

 yet it is one that unfortu- 

 nately obtains in a vast 

 number of cases. This 

 custom has entailed much 

 undeserved obloquy upon the 

 mixed border, which has in 

 consequence been designated 

 a " contused muddle " ; but 

 w hen laid out with an artistic 

 sense of the rightful values 

 of colour and form, no such 

 stigma can attach to it. 



Having briefly touched 

 upon the grouping of the 

 plants destined to till the 

 border, with regard to their 

 presenting a natural effect, 

 the question of colour-asso- 

 ciation has to be considered. 

 Plants may be disposed in 

 unconventional masses, and 

 yet the herbaceous border 

 may present anything but an 

 attractive appearance, owing 

 to the fact that no thought has been bestowed upon the arrangement of colour harmonies and 

 contrasts. The border should be a picture both in colour and in form. Discordant hues are 

 strictly tabooed on the artist's canvas, and it is equally important that they should not be allowed 

 to sully the fair beauty of the garden. Harmonies should, as a rule, be aimed at rather than 

 contrasts, though, if employed sparingly, as in Nature, effective contrasts add interest to 

 the border. Thus the tall white flower spires of the Cape Hyacinth (Galtonia candicans) 

 rising from an undergrowth of the deep blue Salvia patens are, as an exception to the 

 general rule, distinctly charming, and many other like contrasts that might be cited are 

 not only allowable but valuable, but these should be used in moderation and with 

 discretion, or the border will lose that sense of repose that should invest every portion 



A BORDER AT [IAMHLEDEN MANOR HOUSE. 



