THE AMATEUR’S FLOWER GARDEN. 241 
And extend the system as you become accustomed to it, and 
equal to its demands, for it will swallow up many more plants 
than you have been accustomed to provide for the same space 
when planting out was followed. 
If we had to advise in particular cases, we should frequently 
turf over many of the existing flower-beds, and reduce the 
area for display to very 
circumscribed limits; for 
in many small gardens the 
multiplicity of flower-beds 
is puerile, and makes one 
think of a doll’s garden, 
or a farthing kaleidoscope. 
Of course we get into 
difficulties at this point; 
people are not prepared 
to give up their flower¬ 
beds, and do not quite 
see the way clearly to do 
anything with them but 
as they have been accus¬ 
tomed to do. If there 
are groups of beds, and 
the desire is to improve 
the garden and reduce the 
extent of bedding, and 
make a first start in 
plunging, it will probably 
not be difficult to mark 
off certain of the beds to 
be planted with evergreen 
and flowering shrubs, sedum spectabile. 
with some good hardy 
herbaceous plants in front of them, and reserve the remainder 
for experiments in plunging. Let us illustrate this suggestion 
by a rough and ready example. Suppose a group of beds, as 
in the annexed diagram. We have here ten beds, and we 
desire to reduce their number without making them one-sided. 
We have but to strike out, say, 2, 4, J 7 , 9, and we have six 
remaining. 
Or we may strike out 5 and 6, or 1, 2, 3, 8, 9,10. 
How, suppose that we cannot attempt to manage six beds by 
16 
