THE most satisfactory garden of flowering plants for small places, all things considered, is one composed of hardy herbaceous perennials and biennials.

This for several reasons:

1st

Once thoroughly established they are good for an indefinite period.

2d

It is not necessary to "make garden" annually, as is the case where annuals are depended on.

3d

They require less care than any other class of plants.

4th

Requiring less care than other plants, they are admirably adapted to the needs of those who can devote only a limited amount of time to gardening.

5th

They include some of the most beautiful plants we have.

6th

By a judicious selection of kinds it is possible to have flowers from them from early in spring till late in fall.

I have no disposition to say disparaging things about the garden of annuals. Annuals are very desirable. Some of them are absolutely indispensable. But they call for a great deal of labor. It is hard work to spade the ground, and make the beds, and sow the seed, and keep the weeds down. This work must be done year after year. But with hardy plants this is not the case. Considerable labor may be called for, the first year, in preparing the ground and setting out the plants, but the most of the work done among them, after that, can be done with the hoe, and it will take so little time to do it that you will wonder how you ever came to think annuals the only plants for the flower-garden of busy people. That this is what a great many persons think is true, but it is because they have not had sufficient experience with hardy plants to fully understand their merits, and the small amount of care they require. A season's experience will convince them of their mistake.

SHRUBS AND PERENNIALS COMBINED IN BORDER

In preparing the ground for the reception of these plants, spade it up to the depth of a foot and a half, at least, and work into it a liberal amount of good manure, or some commercial fertilizer that will take the place of manure from the barnyard or cow-stable. Most perennials and herbaceous plants will do fairly well in a soil of only moderate richness, but they cannot do themselves justice in it. They ought not to be expected to. To secure the best results from them - and you ought to be satisfied with nothing less - feed them well. Give them a good start, at the time of planting, and keep them up to a high standard of vitality by liberal feeding, and they will surprise and delight you with the profusion and beauty of their bloom.

Perennials will not bloom till the second year from seed. Therefore, if you want flowers from them the first season, it will be necessary for you to purchase last season's seedlings from the florist.

In most neighborhoods one can secure enough material to stock the border from friends who have old plants that need to be divided, or by exchanging varieties.

But if you want plants of any particular color, or of a certain variety, you will do well to give your order to a dealer. In most gardens five or six years old the original varieties will either have died out or so deteriorated that the stock you obtain there will be inferior in many respects, therefore not at all satisfactory to one who is inclined to be satisfied with nothing but the best. The "best" is what the dealer will send you if you patronize one who has established a reputation for honesty.

The impression prevails, to a great extent, that perennials bloom only for a very short time in the early part of the season. This is a mistake. If you select your plants with a view to the prolongation of the flowering period, you can have flowers throughout the season from this class of plants. Of course not all of them will bloom at the same time. I would not be understood as meaning that. But what I do mean is - that by choosing for a succession of bloom it is possible to secure kinds whose flowering periods will meet and overlap each other in such a manner that some of them will be in bloom most of the time. Many kinds bloom long before the earliest annuals are ready to begin the work of the season. Others are in their prime at midsummer, and later ones will give flowers until frost comes. If you read up the catalogues and familiarize yourself with the habits of the plants which the dealer offers for sale, you can make a selection that will keep the garden gay from May to November.

On the ordinary home-lot there is not much choice allowed as to the location of the border. It must go to the sides of the lot if it starts in front of the house, or it may be located at the rear of the dwelling. On most grounds it will, after a little, occupy both of these positions, for it will outgrow its early limitations in a few years. You will be constantly adding to it, and thus it comes about that the border that begins on each side of the lot will overflow to the rear.

I would never advise locating it in front of the dwelling. Leave the lawn unbroken there. While there is not much opportunity for "effect" on small grounds, a departure from straight lines can always be made, and formality and primness be avoided to a considerable degree. Let the inner edge of the border curve, as shown in the illustration accompanying this chapter, and the result will be a hundredfold more pleasing than it would be if it were a straight line. Curves are always graceful, and indentations here and there enable you to secure new points of view that add vastly to the general effect. They make the border seem larger than it really is because only a portion of it is seen at the same time, as would not be the case if it were made up of straight rows of plants, with the same width throughout.