The Perennial Garden 
From Seed 
THE STARS OF THE HARDY GARDEN—HOW 
YOU CAN GROW THEM ALL FROM SEED AND 
JUST WHEN TO PLANT TO GET RESULTS 
Photographs by N. R. Graves, Chas. Jones and others 
E 
Phlox should be the last plant 
omitted from the hardy garden 
VERY new householder, con¬ 
templating his bare grounds, 
feels the necessity of exterior 
decoration to counterbalance the 
greater or less elaborateness with¬ 
in ; but not every new household¬ 
er, when the cost of the house is 
settled, finds his pocketbook deep 
enough to begin at once the per¬ 
manent planting that goes so far 
toward making the home grounds 
an artistic picture to the passerby 
and a source of perennial pleasure 
to the owner and to his family. 
Either one falls back on annuals, 
or he buys a few shrubs of the 
soft Holland stock, almost sure to 
winter-kill in our more rigorous 
climate, and tries to persuade 
himself that the outdoor decora¬ 
tion is complete without any further additions. 
It has long seemed strange to me that, with the hardy, her¬ 
baceous garden and its wonderful succession of bloom practically 
within the reach of all, so many should solve their outdoor prob¬ 
lem inadequately or should live garden-less until they feel them¬ 
selves financially able to call in the landscape architect and the 
nurseryman. 
Five or six dollars judiciously expended for seeds, an equal 
amount for fertilizer, five dollars for a coldframe, and two and 
a half for a day’s labor, 
if one is averse to the 
task of spading the bor¬ 
der, are all-sufficient, so 
far as expense goes, for 
the creation of a garden 
picture as perfect within 
its outlines as any whose 
scale of measurement is 
by the acre rather than 
the foot. As to the ac¬ 
tual planning and plant¬ 
ing, no border is so suc¬ 
cessful as that with a per¬ 
sonal record. To be 
really a part of the home 
and to express the home- 
life and tastes of the own¬ 
er is as much the end of 
the garden as to be deco¬ 
rative. Such a border is 
not that which springs by 
the magic of the nursery¬ 
man’s day into mature 
life, but a growth, repre¬ 
Delphinium formosum looks 
well with chrysanthemums 
The hardy border is seldom achieved in a year and is just as successful when 
grown from seed 
senting, it may be, the work and 
the pleasure of years. If the 
home-gardener, in his first essay, 
sin against the color-combinations 
dear just now to the heart of the 
e.xpert, he is more than likely, if 
the fault is glaring, to recognize 
and amend it himself. One of the 
prettiest small gardens I have 
ever seen—the work of the own¬ 
er—is one in which a chance 
planting of pink and rose pyreth- 
rums in close proximity to a mass 
of scarlet oriental poppies gave 
place the next season to the 
feathery plumes of white spiraeas, 
a color contrast in entire and or¬ 
thodox harmony. The same gar¬ 
dener began with a border con¬ 
structed on straight lines ; now his 
border sweeps out into the lawn in flowery promontories and 
recedes from it in little bays, in the curve of which blue flowers 
are at their best, deepening the hint of distance. He has planted 
mallows, foxgloves by the hundred, blue monkshood and hardv 
asters under a group of trees, bringing to his own yard a delight¬ 
ful bit of woodland. Experience has taught him, as it will teach 
others, that the strong-growing, shrubby plants, hibiscus, spiraeas, 
bocconias and boltonias, buddleias and Desmodiums afford an 
excellent background; that the dwarf bluebells, the heucheras 
(coral bells), sedums, 
grass pinks and English 
daisies border the lawn 
charmingly ; that the 
snowy white of the great 
Japan irises and the brill¬ 
iant crimson-scarlet of 
the old bee balm {Monar- 
da didyma splendens) are 
at their clearest against a 
background of deep blue 
hybrid delphiniums; that 
blue, as a peacemaker 
among warring colors, is 
almost as good as white; 
that pinks and pale yel¬ 
lows associate more har¬ 
moniously than the per¬ 
missible orange and scar¬ 
let, and that the well- 
arranged border may be 
as cheerful in April and 
October as it is in June 
or July. The householder 
who creates his own 
