182 
Rustic Adornments. 
in itself—quite as beautiful and almost as varied as those we are about to 
enclose in it. Think, too, of the beauty of such a garden upon a day of hoar 
frost, when every spray and twig is glistening white, save in the glow of the 
rayless sun, where the white gems kindle red; and do not let anyone run 
away with the notion, sometimes expressed, that such a garden will need long 
years of waiting to render it presentable. There is a delightful sense of 
substantiality about it from the first, and a short period will see most of our 
trees well established. Witness the accompanying view, taken in the fifth 
year of the existence of a garden laid out upon what had been a bare piece 
of meadow-land. We have remarked that shade is a necessity in order that 
some flowers may be seen in perfection. In the garden we are contemplating 
will be found most of the conditions needful to the display of a large variety 
of flowers. If the planting of trees and shrubs has been carried out taste¬ 
fully, there will be a series of what we may term indentations amongst the 
foliage—most of them opening sunwards. In these place groups of hardy lilies, 
especially Lilium umbellatum , longiflorum , auratum , candidum , and tigrinum , 
foxgloves, Campamda pyramidalis , the magnificent Cardinal Flower ( Lobelia 
cardinalis ), etc., completing the planting of the border with a good assort¬ 
ment of hardy perennials, not dotted here and there in single roots, but 
massed as though they had lived there long, and spread and multiplied and 
grown strong and become naturalized, as many of them will if left undisturbed. 
The portion of the plan marked k is intended to be grass. The grass is 
intersected at one or two points by the pathway, leaving corners ( g ) which 
penetrate into the border, and might be wrought into charming little nooks 
where at any hour of the day, but especially in the dewy morning, you might 
be sure to come upon a blackbird or a thrush; for among the recommendations 
of a garden of this kind must be reckoned the certainty that many a bird will 
find a home there and make it musical. Abutting on the grass are several 
irregular borders, marked c, well fitted for such bold plants as hollyhocks, 
perennial and annual sunflowers, pampas grass, hardy fuchsias, oriental 
poppies, pseonies, delphiniums, tritomas, cannas, dahlias, the Summer 
Hyacinth {Id. candica?is ), and gladiolus, arranged with due regard to sequence 
of bloom. Hollyhocks never show so grandly as when their stately stems 
rise from among clumps of dark-leaved evergreens— Mahonia aquifolia , 
escallonia, box, and the like—and it may be safely said that every flower 
border will look the better, in summer and winter alike, for a liberal but 
judicious use of dwarf shrubs, not planted in stiff geometric figures, but made 
