HERBACEOUS BORDERS AND GROUPS 207 
gardening necessitates at the outset the provision of as favourable a set 
of conditions as possible. Wherever a bed or border for these plants 
is made at Kew, a depth of about two feet of good soil is provided. 
The natural soil affords very little of this. With a sandy or gravelly 
bottom like that of Kew, no artificial drainage is needed, but a bottom 
layer of brick-rubble is a great advantage wherever the soil is close 
and heavy. It has the effect of keeping the border warm and com- 
paratively dry in winter. An annual overhauling of these borders 
is imperative. The coarser-growing plants require to be dug up and 
divided into smaller pieces before replanting. The finer and more 
delicate ones need to be relieved from the pressure of encroaching 
and more vigorous neighbours. Good soil and rotted manure may 
be added where necessary as the work proceeds. In hot, dry weather 
mulching with short manure is a great help. In arranging the plants 
in a border of this kind, one’s aim should not be to get them to form 
an even bank sloping from back to front. The bulk of the tallest 
plants should, of course, go to the back, but colonies of tall and 
medium ones should come boldly to the front, just as bays of 
dwarfer ” ones may recede well into the border, thus giving a 
broken and diversified surface. 
Scattered about the lawns at Kew are some scores of beds de- 
voted to the cultivation of the most beautiful herbaceous plants. 
As effects here must be broad and simple, these beds 
are usually filled with a single species, or with two or 
more chosen to enhance each other’s beauty. In autumn 
or early winter many of them are filled with bulbs, like tulips, 
daffodils, or hyacinths, which flower in the spring. When their 
time is past they are dug up, ripened, and stored for the next 
autumn planting, their place in the bed being taken by later 
flowering herbaceous plants that have been growing in a private 
nursery. An opportunity is thus afforded to introduce to public 
notice the best new herbaceous plants as they appear and to present 
them in as advantageous a manner as possible. 
The beautiful and gorgeous colouring of the irises, which is not 
surpassed even by that of the costliest orchids, has given them a 
Iris Garden ver y i m P or tant place in the modern garden of hardy 
flowers. At Kew a piece of lawn about an acre in 
extent is devoted to them alone. The northern exit from the Rock 
Garden opens on to it. How charming a spot it is when the irises are 
Flower 
Beds. 
