These beds should be filled with flowers that will keep in bloom during the whole season, 
and it is best generally to have but one kind in a bed. Phlox Drummondii, Verbena, Portulaca, 
and the scarlet Geraniums, are well adapted for this purpose, and occasionally it is well to 
introduce the ribbon style. The plan is to set plants of the same height and color in a row, 
several rows forming the bed, and giving it the appearance of the stripes in ribbons, as shown 
in the engravings p. 15. To make a bed of this kind select flowers of similar height and 
habit. Of course, if one row loses its flowers the effect is spoiled. If a circular bed is made, 
the rows toward the center may be taller than the outside rows. A very cheap and pretty 
ribbon bed can be made by using the different colors of the same flower, like Phlox Drum- 
mondii, and for a beginner we know of no flower as good. These beds, it must be remembered, 
are for the adornment of the grounds, and they furnish no flowers for the house — no presents for 
friends, no bouquet for the dining room, or for schools or churches, or the sick room. These we 
must have. So, just back of the lawn, make generous beds of flowers that you can cut freely — 
Asters, Balsams, Zinnias, Stocks, Mignonette, Sweet Peas, &c. In these beds you can also 
grow the Everlasting Flowers for winter use, and the plants designed for winter flowering in the 
house. It is best to make such beds oblong, about four or five feet in width, so that one can 
reach half way across, with alleys or paths between. 
THE BULB AND PERENNIAL GROUNDS. 
There is also a sameness about lawn beds that in time becomes tiresome. They are beautiful, 
but it is unchanging beauty ; a bed of beauty, but no plant has character or beauty of its ow n, 
each one contributing its share, and sacrificing itself, for the general good. Often, a little tired, 
we turn from the well kept lawn, with its masses of bright colors, to the beds of Perennials and 
the Bulb Garden, and there we find each plant in its own character, standing alone, and doing 
its best to secure our admiration. Every day there seems to be a new development : some plant 
that we obtained long ago, and for whose blossoms we have been waiting and watching, shoM's 
buds, and in a day or two flowers ; and another, almost forgotten, to our surprise we find in 
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