CHAPTER VIL 
A SELECTION OP HARDY HERBACEOUS PLANTS. 
It must be understood that in this selection we can have 
nothing to do with curiosities, or with plants that are simply 
“interesting” for some odd reason to somebody. We must 
have beauty, or at the very least a somewhat showy character, 
in every plant selected. There are, perhaps, fifty species and 
varieties of lilies known to gardeners, but about half a dozen 
are enough for any amateur who has not committed himself 
to the idea of living on lilies and living for lilies at any sacri¬ 
fice to the end of his days. Better is it, we believe, to have 
some fine clumps of such comparatively common plants as 
the white lily, the orange lily, the golden-striped lily, and the 
ivory-flowered lily (e.g.,Z. candid-urn , L.hulbiferum , L. auratum , 
and L. longiflorum ), than plant a lot of “ curious” lilies 
that may cost a guinea a bulb to begin with, and be scarcely 
worth a farthing a bulb for their beauty when in flower, 
though some of the curiosities may require two or three years’ 
growing before they deign to reward their patient owner 
with a hint of what they would be if they could. We 
earnestly advise the lovers of hardy plants to grow good 
things, and leave the bad things to the botanists. The her¬ 
baceous border must not be a refuge for weeds, labelled with 
hard names long enough to reach from here to the moon, but 
a comfortable home for beautiful flowers that need so little 
care that it may be said of them that the delight of owning 
them is not necessarily accompanied with the care of keeping 
them. It is not intended to name all the good things in the 
list that follows, but it is intended to include good things 
only, and we offer it as comprising a selection of the most 
beautiful herbaceous plants known to cultivation, comprising 
chiefly such as readily adapt themselves to diverse conditions 
of soil and climate. 
