AND GEO UND S. 
145 
syringas, and whatever else is known to be beautiful and easily ob¬ 
tained, are crowded along the side fences. Mrs. A. insists that a 
space shall be left on both sides of the main-walk for her flowers. 
Accordingly the beds are formed as shown on the plan, and planted 
with all the fine flowering bulbs and annuals that she can get 
plants or seeds of. There is still wanting a feature that some 
neighboring place has, viz.: one or more fanciful trellises—master¬ 
pieces of delicate carpentry, brilliant with white paint—upon which 
to train pillar roses. “ There’s just the place for them,” says Mrs. 
A., “just in the middle of the yard, on each side,” and there they 
are placed. 
We need not follow their planting further. The plan (on the 
right) shows how the place will be filled in two or three years. 
Each latest planting is put in the most convenient open space, and 
every spring brings some new candidate for a place. At the end 
of eight or ten years let us look in upon the ground and see the 
result. There should be a home-picture, with its encircling fore¬ 
ground, its open middle distance, its vine-clad cottage centre, 
smiling like a speaking portrait well framed. What will it be, if it 
has been planted and kept in this mode, still so common in 
suburban places ? A mass of agglomerated and tangled verdure. 
Pass along the street, and the lovely foliage of the two willows 
marks the spot, but beneath their overshadowing foliage the ever¬ 
greens and other trees have a feeble existence, and their spindling 
forms as they essay, with prim pertness, to stretch above the 
crowding shrubs and tangled grass around them to maintain their 
individuality, are met by a wet blanket of the willow’s shade in 
summer, and her damp old clothes in the autumn. Straggling 
rose-bushes and overgrown shrubs elbow each other over the walk, 
and quarrel for space with the grass and old annuals that try in 
vain to get their share of room and light. As some English re¬ 
viewer says of the bedrooms of little gothic cottages—“somewhere 
around among the gables”—may be observed of all the pretty 
things that have with so much care been planted on this place— 
they are to be found somewhere among the bushes ; and behind 
all, as if the one great object of planting were to hide it out of 
sight, is a cottage, 
io 
