Primarily, we shall see to our hardy plants, which are the backbone of the modern garden. We shall overhaul those that we have, propagate the desirable, curb the rampant, add new elements. And we shall see to the sowing of half-hardy annuals, to the propagation of Dahlias, to the planting of Carnations and Roses, to the development of seedling Begonias, and to the many other pleasant duties that will find their reward in the beauty of the summer garden. Ferns shall be considered.

Herbaceous Borders

When the winter is mild, signs of life are abundant in the herbaceous border in March. Early growing plants, like Pyrethrums and Doronicums and Michaelmas Daisies (one of the latest of plants to bloom, the Michaelmas Daisy is one of the first to start growing), will be throwing up shoots, and there will be green buds among the brown stumps of plants that were cut down in autumn or winter. Stay! were the dead stems really removed some weeks ago, or are they swaying, drear and melancholy, in the March wind? There is nothing that looks much more doleful and furtive than a neglected, hardy plant border - not even a homeless dog. Of course, the withered shoots and old flower stems ought to have been cut down and burnt many weeks ago. Let us hasten, with shame and remorse, to do it now. When they have all been cleared off, and the fire is crackling under them (we will light it on a day when the wind is not blowing straight towards the house), we shall feel more cheerful.

The border clear, the next step is division, rearrangement, addition. We will drive a turfing iron, or a sharp spade, through the coarse clumps of Ox-eye Daisy, Goat's-rue, Sunflower, Michaelmas Daisy, and any other large, fast-spreading things, and, having divided them into several pieces, replant some of the outside portions in deeply dug soil, and cast out the weaker central pieces. We will arrange our kinds in groups, say, of three plants each in a triangle; and see that each has room to spread its growth without getting entangled with its neighbours. As we work we will turn the soil to the full depth of the spade, and dig in some yard manure.

But, perhaps, some of us have no borders to deal with? Perhaps they have to be made? This is a truly happy state - always provided that we have a bit of ground to dig, and a pound or two wherewith to buy plants. There is a joyful task before us. We need envy no one. We sniff scornfully at yachts, motor cars, airships, balls, operas, suppers, and routs; we have something more attractive. The delight of making an herbaceous border never grows stale. When we have made one we want to make another, and if we have no more room we want to start making borders for our friends.

We do not make higgledy-piggledy borders nowadays.

We do not dig up a certain amount of ground and put every hardy plant that comes along into it, thinking of nothing but height. We give careful thought to colour. We arrange our borders in our minds, and convince ourselves, before the plants are put in, that none will disagree with its neighbours. Some may suggest that this is just what the designer of the old "ribbon border" did, and that we are drifting back to the horrors of the bedding system, merely using hardy plants instead of tender ones. Of course we are not doing, and we do not intend to do, anything so crude. We see enough of ribbon borders and the bedding system still, and we shall avoid the mistake of aping them.