February, 1915 
THE GARDEN M A G A Z I N E 
15 
The dining-room table will not break it be- 
cause one will look over it to the pergola on 
the higher level. 
“From the drawing room the dining ter- 
race will be hidden. A big bay window will 
open upon a broad circle bordered by rho- 
dodendrons, which will look handsome both 
winter and summer, a fine secluded place for 
the small youngsters to play, under the 
eyes of the house. On the same axis but 
beyond the old stone wall (which will be 
jealously preserved through the gardens as 
elsewhere), will be the flower garden, across 
which you will look to a low platform at 
the other end, with a white statue against 
a dark evergreen background. 
“This vista, with its zones of sun and 
shadow, will be a short variation on the 
longer dining-room vista motive, to borrow 
a term from the musicians. The garden 
is placed near but separated from the 
house so that it may be well out of sight 
during the dismal seasons. All the plant- 
ing immediately around the house will 
be evergreen with spring and summer 
bulbs. 
“The meadow lawn is directly accessible 
from house, garden entrance court and 
service lane, but is an isolated unit of 
design as it should be. 
“We might go much more into detail, 
but without profit until you decide about 
the general scheme. How do you like 
it?” 
“What do you think of it, Meriam?” 
asked the master of the house. 
“ It seems to have everything we want and 
all mighty convenient. Part of it seems 
queer and not as we would have done it. 
But after all we called in a landscape archi- 
tect because we didn’t know how to plan 
all these things ourselves. Russell’s points 
are all sensible, and I think we had better 
let him go ahead.” 
“All right, Russell, go ahead. Every- 
thing is certainly compact and shipshape. I 
guess you do know what you are about, after 
all. Seltzer or plain water? ” 
A Three-Tier Herbaceous Border 
By B. Y. Morrison, 
District of 
Columbia 
THE SKILLFUL USE OF “IN-BETWEENS” BY WHICH A GREAT VARIETY OF PLANTS 
CAN BE GROWN IN A BORDER OF MINIMUM SIZE, THROUGHOUT THE SEASON 
T 
The Japanese anemones will 
do best in a (airly moist sit- 
uation. and some shade even 
HIS 
article 
is not 
for the 
people who 
leave their gar- 
dens to the care 
of the hired 
man. Its doc- 
trine is a 
dangerous one, 
one which calls 
for the constant attention of the owner. 
And, moreover, the owner must belong to 
that demented clan, who go out before break- 
fast to see the new peony buds, and who 
come in from office by way of the garden to 
see what the sun has opened during the day. 
The trouble was just this. I was to have 
a new house and a new garden — and, alas, 
the garden was infinitesimal and my plant 
appetite was gigantic. A good friend came 
to the rescue unknowingly by giving me 
many happy hours in his garden, and slowly 
the bright idea of the “in-betweens” took 
hold. Of course, interplanting is nothing 
new. Nearly all good gardens show ex- 
amples of interplanting, especially in the 
herbaceous borders, but I wanted to inter- 
plant more closely than is generally recom- 
mended because I simply had to have all 
the things, and if I had them all in the 
old way they would have to be just about 
half a plant apiece. 
So scheming began. To avoid the danger 
of having a messy effect in the garden sev- 
eral different plants were decided upon to 
be featured. First of all German iris, then 
Japanese iris, phlox, Japanese anemones 
and Michaelmas daisies in succession. 
These were spotted through the borders 
with the exception of the Japanese iris and 
anemones, for which a special bed was re- 
served. Then came the delightful work of 
interweaving. 
In working this we made a list of the 
“must haves” that were herbaceous in 
character and not bulbous. Then another 
list of these, grouping them so that they 
combined pleasantly for growth or success- 
ion or combination of bloom. In doing this 
we thought of plants first according to their 
habit of growth. For example, there is a 
great host of plants like thyme, Veronica 
repens, Ajuga reptans, the smaller sedums, 
and such creatures who crawl over the earth 
rooting at every joint. Obviously they 
must not be planted next to plants which 
make rosettes or tufts, like Armeria, 
Lychnis, and similar plants. Then there 
are the trailers which root more slowly at 
the joints, if at all. Examples of this class 
are Phlox subulata, Cerastium tomentosum, 
Arabis, Alyssum saxatile, Iberis, Campanula 
carpatica, and a host more. These, like the 
first, are prone to swamp their neighbors. 
The erect plants we group also according 
to their methods of self propagation. There 
is the great class of things like phlox, col- 
umbines, delphiniums, aconites, peonies, 
fraxinellas which merely increase slowly 
about the old crown until a 
“clump” is formed; and there is 
the other class which sucker out- 
rageously- — nearly all the com- 
posites go into this class, some of 
the garden oenotheras, a few of the 
coarser campanulas, hemerocallis, 
and many others. 
So the problem was simplified 
into a mechanical arrangement of 
creepers, trailers, dumpers, and 
suckerers, if we may use such 
ludicrous nicknames. Those which 
make clumps are ideal as centres 
to plant around. The creepers 
which are shallow rooted run them 
a close second, especially for any 
underplanting of bulbs. In my The charm 
garden, suckerers are tabooed save 
for Michaelmas daisies, which I must have, 
and a solitary clump of Boltonia latis- 
quama. Even my beloved Hemerocallis 
flava and Thunbergii are outlawed in the 
shrubbery part of the garden. 
But let us get to examples for they are 
the most fun. Because my garden is so 
very small, most of the garden stuff is of 
small scale which will be immediately evi- 
dent from a glance at the plan of the garden 
to be, which employs some of the garden 
interweavings from the other gardens I 
know. 
Have you ever seen fat little clumps of 
Scilla sibirica and Galanthus Elwesii coming 
up in front of the dark purple red shoots of 
an old peony? If you haven’t, try it. The 
bulbs will ripen fairly well under the peony 
tops and last very well considering. The 
same bulbs look well with yellow crocus 
near clumps of Dictamnus. Here, of course 
there is no special contrast of growth, but 
Dictamnus makes great clumps which are 
impatient of disturbance and little things 
of bulbous nature can go in to economize 
space. And not far down the line from this 
of the mixed herbaceous border lies in the succession of 
effects. Tulip and phlox shown here 
