The well-considered garden

Front matter

.5 ^,.

o.V oN'

1^/. .^\'

Preface

The wide-spread interest in gardening that is steadily growing throughout the land will have prepared a large public for the reception of such stimulating encouragement as will be found in the following pages. One thinks of a great and fertile field ready ploughed and sown, and only waiting for genial warmth and moisture to make it burst forth into life and eventual abundance. The book will come as these vivifying influences. The author's practical knowledge, keen insight, and splendid enthusiasm, her years of labor on her own land and her constant example and encouragement of others — combine to make her one of those most fitted to direct energy, to suggest and instruct — to communicate her own thought and practise to willing learners.

Many are those who love their gardens, many who know their plants, many who understand their best ways of culture. All these qualities or accomplishments are necessary, but besides and above them all is the will or determination to do the best possible — "to garden finely" — as Bacon puts it.

ix

PREFACE

Such a desire is often felt, but from lack of experience it cannot be brought into effect. What is needed for the doing of the best gardening is something of an artist's training, or at any rate the possession of such a degree of aptitude — the God-given artist's gift — as with due training may make an artist; for gardening, in its best expression, may well rank as one of the fine arts. But without the many years of labor needed for any hope of success in architecture, sculpture, or painting, there are certain simple rules, whose observance, carried out in horticulture, will make all the difference between a garden that is utterly commonplace and one that is full of beauty and absorbing interest.

Of these one of the chief is a careful consideration of color arrangement. Early in her gardening career this fact impressed itself upon the author's mind. A study of the book reveals the method and gives a large quantity of applied example. A few such lessons put in practise will assuredly lead on to independent effort; for the learner, diligently reading and carefully following the good guidance, will soon find the way open to a whole new field of beauty and delight.

Gertrude Jekyll.

Contents

CHAPTEB

FAQi:

I. Color Harmony 1

II

"A Garden! — The word is in itself a picture and what pictures it reveals." — E. V. B.

II

TT will be as well to say at the outset that my -'- tastes are as far as possible removed from those popularly understood to be Japanese. I almost never regard a flower alone. I can admire a perfect Frau Karl Druschki rose, a fine spray of Countess Spencer sweet pea, but never without thinking of the added beauty sure to be its part if a little sea-lavender were placed next the sweet pea, or if more of the delicious roses were together. Wherefore it will be seen that my mind is bent wholly on grouping or massing, and growing companion crops of flowers to that end. Mention is made only of those flower crops actually in bloom at the same time in the garden illustrated. From this garden, of thirty-two beds separated by turf walks, and with two central cross-walks and an oblong pool for watering purposes, practically all yellow flowers have been eliminated, and all scarlet as well. The early columbine {Aquilegia chrysantha) and the pale-yellow

Thermopsis Caroliniana are the only yellows now permitted, and these only to make blues or purples finer by juxtaposition. All yellow, orange, and scarlet flowers are relegated to the shrubbery borders; therefore, in speaking of companion crops in this garden, it will be understood that some of the greatest glories of July, August, and September are omitted.

As far as I know, no one has ever suggested the growing of various varieties of gladiolus among the lower ornamental grasses. This, if practicable culturally, should give many delightful effects. A yellow gladiolus, such as Eldorado, among the yellow-green grasses; the deep violet. Baron Hulot, or salmon-pinks, among the bluish-green. Stems of gladiolus must ever be concealed. This would do it gracefully and well.

The two companion crops of spring flowers shown in cut are the early forget-me-not {Myosotis dissitiflora) , which presses close against the dark-red brick of the low post, while the Heavenly Blue grape hyacinth {Muscari botryoides, var.), a rich purplish-blue, blooms next it. Tulipa retroflexa is seen in the foreground, and the buds of Scilla campanulata, var. Excelsior, when the photograph was taken were about to open. After

MUSCARI HELIVBNLY BLUE, TULIPA RETROFLEXA, AND MYOSOTIS ALONG BRICK WALK

ARABIS AND TULIP COTTAGE MAID

DOUBLE GYPSOPHILA AND SHASTA DAISY one day's sun the various bulbs and the forget-me-nots made a most ravishing effect with their clear tones of blue, lavender, and lemon-yellow.

I never tire of singing the praises of Tulipa rctroflexa; it is among my great favorites in tulips. And this leads to the mention of that tulip, to me, the best of all for color, known under three names — Hobbema, Le Reve, and Sara Bernhardt. No other tulip has the wonderful and unique color of this. If you possess a room with walls in delicate creamy tones, furnished with a little old mahogany, and are happy enough to be able on some fine May morning to place there two or three bowls full of this tulip, you will understand my enthusiasm. The color may be described as one of those warm yet faded rose-pinks of old tapestry or other antique stuff; a color to make an artist's heart leap up. This is far from the subject, but these digressions must occasionally be excused.

In small note-books — tiny calendars sent each year by a seed-house to its customers, and in which it is my habit to set down on each Sunday the names of plants in flower — I find the following were blooming on a day in May : Tulipa retro- Hexa, early forget-me-not, Muscari botryoides, var. Heavenly Blue; Scilla campanulata, var. Excelsior; tulip Rose a Merveille, Campernelle jonquil. Narcissus Barri, var. Flora Wilson; Narcissus Poetaz, var. Louisa; Tulipa Greigi, Iris cyanea, var. pumila (a lovely variety, the blue of the sky), Phlox divaricata, var. Canadensis (the new variety of this, Laphami, is both larger and finer), so beautiful back of masses of Alyssum saxatile, or rock cress, both single and double, and Iberis Gihraltarica.

On the Sunday one week earlier, there were in full bloom last spring, tulips Chrysolora, Count of Leicester (the best double in tawny yellows), Couleur Cardinal, Thomas Moore, Leonardo da Yinci, narcissus Queen of Spain and Flora Wilson, Louisa, poet's narcissus, 7m pumila (the common purple), and tulips Vermihon Brilliant, Queen of Holland, Clusiana, Greigi, Brunhilde, Cerise Gris de Lin (another of the faded pinks — in this case, however, so extreme that many gardeners would reject it), Gris de Lin, an enchanting if cold pink; Jaune a-platie, violas and arabis, a bank of Munstead primroses (certainly the apotheosis of the English primrose, if so imposing a word may be used for so shy a flower) . The arabis appears (facing page 28) with Campernelle jonquils in the near part, the darling tuhp Cottage Maid blooming brightly among the arabis and making the lovehest imaginable spring bouquet. The single arabis I have now forsworn in favor of the new double variety, which is far more effective — like a tiny white stock without the stock's stiffness of habit — and quite as easy to grow and maintain.

In the blossomy photograph, facing page 48, are found four or five companion crops of flowers, though that was a peculiar season in which this picture was made, when syringas bloomed with Canterbury bells ! Here peonies and Canterbury bells make up the bulk of bloom, some young syringa bushes showing white back of them, and sweetbrier covered with fragrant pink to the right. Sweet-williams and pinks may be found in the foreground with rich rose pyrethrum, the sweet-williams of a dark rose-red, in perfect harmony with all the paler pinks near and beyond them. I may say here that, like most amateurs, I have a favorite color in flowers — the pink of Drummond phlox. Chamois Rose, or, in deeper tones, of sweet-wilHam Sutton's Pink Beauty, or the rosy-stock-flowered larkspur. When I say that such and such a flower is of a good warm pink, it is to the tones of one or the other of these that I would refer.

On the date on which this picture of peonies was made there were to be found in bloom in my garden these: larkspur, Thcrmopsis Carolimana (which I grow near groups of tall pale-blue delphinium, and which makes a lovely color effect, adding lemon-colored spikes to the blue), sweet-williams, Canterbury bells, peonies, Aquilegia chrysanfha, Ackillea ptarmica, hardy campanula, pinks both annual and hardy, foxgloves, roses, annual gypsophila, common daisies. The latter are valuable for masses of early white. I cut them to the ground as soon as bloom is over, when their low leaf-clumps are quickly covered by overhanging later flowers.

The midsummer flower crops are, by all odds, the greatest in variety as they are in luxuriance. Some idea of the appearance of this garden in mid-July maj^ be had in the top cut facing, when the flowers fully open are almost all either blue or white, except toward the centre of the garden, where dehcate pink tones prevail, and the fine purple hardy phlox Lord Rayleigh blooms, giving richness to the picture and forming a combination of colors, blue and rich purple, which is especially to my taste.

The abundance of Gypsophila pmiiculata, var.

GYPSOPHILA AND LILIES IN THE GARDEN elegans, will be noted throughout the garden, and just here may be recalled that delightful and suggestive article by Mr. Wilhelm Miller in "The Garden Magazine" for September, 1909, advocating the use of flowers with delicate foliage and tiny blossoms as aids to lightness of garden effects, not to mention the new varieties of such flowers mentioned in the article, Crambe orientalis, Rodgersia, and various unfamiliar spireas.

There are both a whiter gypsophila and a grayer. The former is the variety flore pleno, the latter the ordinary paniculata. They are both tremendous acquisitions to the garden, as their cloudlike masses of bloom give a wonderfully soft look to any body of flowers, besides making charming settings for flowers of larger and more distinct form, as in cut (page 28), where Shasta daisy Alaska is grown against the double gypsophila. Lilium longiflorum is a companion crop of gypsophila, and I am much given to planting this low-growing lily below and among the gray softness of the other. In bloom when the garden was a blaze of color in midsummer were these — or, possibly, it is fairer to say, "Among those present": Delphinium, both the tall Belladonna and one of a lovely blue, Cantab by name, best of all larkspurs; Delphinium Chinensis, var. grandiflora, in palest blues and whites; quantities of achillea, valuable but too aggressive as to roots to be altogether welcome in a small garden; Heuchera sanguinea, var. Rosamund; heliotrope of a deep purple in the four central beds of the garden nearest the pool, in the centre of each heliotrope bed a clump of the medium tall and early perennial phlox Lord Rayleigh, warm purple (this was an experiment of my own which is most satisfactory in its result); baby rambler roses (Annchen Mueller), and climbing roses (the garden gate at the right is covered with Lady Gay). The arch between upper and lower gardens has young plants of Lady Gay also started against its sides. To continue with companion crops: perennial phlox Eugene Danzanvilliers, masses of palest lavender; Physostegia Virginica, var. alba; the lovely lavender-blue StoJcesia cyanea, Scabiosa Japonica, sea-lavender {Statice incana, var. Silver Cloud), stocks in whites and deep purples, the annual phloxes Chamois Rose and Lutea — the latter so nice a tone of old-fashioned buff that it is useful as a sort of horticultural hyphen — and a charming double warm-pink poppy, nameless, which raises its fluffy head above its blue-green leaves from July till frost, and brings warmth and beauty to the garden.

Time was when I preferred to see the chamomile, or anthemis, spread its pale-yellow masses below the blue delphinium spikes; but I now prefer whites, or better still, rich purples or pale lavenders, near, a closer harmony of color.

One of the most successful plantings for boldness of effect is the one beyond the low hedge of the privet ibota; a detail is seen in cut facing page 36. This is of lemon and white hollyhocks, with thick, irregular groups of Lilium candidum upspringing before them. Sufficient room is left between the hedge and the lilies to cultivate and to trim the hedge, which is but two feet high. And when these tall pale flowers open and both the rusty growth of leaves at the base of the hollyhock stalks, and the yellowing leaves of the lily stems, are hidden by the trim dark hedge, the effect from the garden itself is surprisingly good. Numberless combinations of all these flowers, which bloom at the same time, suggest themselves, an infinite variety. Three plants which bloom in mid-July are the necessary and beautiful pink verbena. Beauty of Oxford, and the snapdragons in the fine new tones called pink, carmine-pink, and coral-red; also that exquisite flower, Clarkia elegans, in the variety known as Sutton's double salmon, one of the most graceful and remarkably pretty annuals which have ever come beneath my eye. Love-in-the-mist blooms now, and the best variety, Miss Jekyll, is exceedingly pretty and valuable.

A list of companion crops for August most naturally begins with perennial phloxes; in my case, Pantheon, used very freely; Aurore Boreale, Fernando Cortez (wonderful brilliant coppery pink), a very little Coquelicot, used in conjunction with sea-holly; white phloxes Van Lassburg and Fiancee, zinnia in light flesh tones, the good lavender-pink physostegia (Virginica rosea), sea-holly, stocks, and dianthus of the variety Salmon Queen.

There is hardly space left in which to mention the flower crops which enrich September with color. But no list of the flowers of that month should begin with the name of anything less lovely than the tall, exquisite, pale-blue Salvia patens. Called a tender perennial, I have found it entirely hardy; and the sudden blooming of a pale-blue flower spike in early autumn is as welcome as it is surprising. Second to this I place the hardy aster, or Michaelmas daisy, now to be had in many named varieties and forming, with the salvia just

Q Q

H o named, a rare combination of light colors. My hardy asters thus far have been practically two, Pulcherrima and Coombe Fishacre, two weeks later; this gives me four weeks of lavender bloom in September and October. The accommodating gladiolus, which, as every one knows, will bloom whenever one plans to have it, is a treasure now. America, which has so much lavender in its pink, is exceeding fair in combination with either of these hardy asters; and when spikes of the salvia are added to a mass of these two flowers of which I have just spoken, you have one of the loveliest imaginable companion crops of flowers.

A prospective combination not yet tried but which I am counting upon this season is blue lyme grass {Elymus arenarius) with Chamois Rose Phlox Drummondii below it, and back of it gladiolus William Falconer. The lyme grass has much blue in its leaves, and so has the gladiolus; there should be excellent harmonies of both foliage and flower.

Very lately, long since the above was written, a color combination most subtle and beautiful, a September picture, has come to view: Salvia farinacea, a soft blue-lavender, with clustering spikes of palest pink stock near it, very close to it, were the two subjects so perfectly suited to each other. Let me commend this arrangement as something rather out of the common, for I can hardly think this salvia is often met with in our gardens. And the use of a lovely but unfamiliar flower will bring with it a certain additional pleasure.

Ill

"Give me a tree, a well, a hive. And I can save my soul alive."

Ill

EASY enough it is to plan successive flower crops for different parts of a place: but not so easy, considering the limited amount of nourishment in the soil and the habit of growth of various flowering plants, to cover one spot for weeks with flowers. An immense variety of treatment is possible and much disagreement must be beforehand conceded. Calculations for varying latitudes must be made with more than usual care; and the question of individual taste asserts itself with great insistence.

A very rough and hard bank of nearly solid clay with a south exposure has for some years been planted to narcissus Emperor, Cynosure, and one or two other rather later varieties. Striking boldly along among these, while in full bloom, grows an irregular line, thickening and thinning in places, of tulip Vermilion Brilliant, absolutely described by its name. As the flowers of these scarlet and yellow bulbs commence to fade, the ground below them begins to green with Httle leaves of calendulas Orange King and Sulphur Queen, as well as of the fine double white poppy White Swan. These practically cover the dying bulb leaves in a few weeks and produce a succession of charming bloom beginning rather early in the summer. A few zinnias do well among them, the medium tall varieties grown only from seed labelled "Flesh-color." For my purposes this zinnia color is always the best. It generally produces flowers varying from flesh-pink to pale or faded yellow, colors which in all their range look so well with yellow or warm pink flowers that many unique and lovely combinations are obtained by their free use. Beware of the zinnia seed marked "Rose," and of all mixtures of this seed. The seed rarely comes true to color, and its bad colors are so hideously wrong with most other flowers that they are a very real menace to the beginner in what we might call picture-gardening.

Iceland poppies, thickly planted among the narcissi and tulips, would bring a crop of charming silken blooms well held above the foliage already on that bank, and coming between the earlier and later flower crops.

The little walk of dark brick shown in the first

BORDERS OF PALE BLUE, BLUE -PURPLE, AND PALE YELLOW

TULIP COTTAGE MAID WITH ARABIS ALPINA illustration is bordered in very early spring by blue grape hyacinths (Muscari botryoides), followed closely by the fine forget-me-not Myosotis dissiti flora in mounds and sprays. Among these are quantities of the cream-white daffodil {Narcissus cernuus). Alternating with the plants of early forget-me-not are many more of Sutton's Perfection and Sutton's Royal Blue, which come into bloom as the earliest fade; these grow very tall and form a foreground of perfect loveliness for the tall Tulipa retroflexa, which rises irregularly back of the small sky-blue flowers below, completing a combination of cream color and light blue charmingly delicate and effective. Following the two blue and cream-white crops of flowers bordering this walk, dark-pink phloxes bloom in early August, three successive periods of gayety being thus assured to the little pathway.

A continuation of this walk, running toward a wooden gateway in a trellised screen, may boast also of three successive flower-appearances of different kinds. Back of the brick edging bordering the gravel are planted alternating groups of myosotis Sutton's Royal Blue, hardy dianthus Her Majesty, and early and late hardy asters, the two mentioned in another chapter, Coombe Fishacre and Pulcherrima. First to enliven the borders with color is the myosotis, a peculiarly pretty effect occurring in the leading up, at either end of the walk, of the irregular edge-groups of pale blue to low masses of the old-fashioned Harison's Yellow and Persian Yellow rose. Late forget-me-not is never lovelier than when used in connection with this rose. The combination reminds me of the delicate colors of the flower-boxes below each window of Paquin's great establishment in the Rue de la Paix, as it may be seen every May. Following the myosotis and yellow roses come masses of the scented white pinks, while by this time the hardy asters have developed into handsome dark-green groups of leaves and give all through the summer a rich green contrasting well with the gray mounds of dianthus foliage, and finally, in September, rising suddenly into sprays of tall, fine lavender bloom.

No succession crop of spring and early summer that I have happened upon seems to work better than that of tulip Yellow Rose planted in small spaces between common and named varieties of Oriental Poppy. The tulip, in itself of gorgeous beauty, very rich yellow and extremely double, absolutely lacks backbone, and the first heavy shower brings its widely opened flowers to earth to be bespattered with mud. The leaves of the poppy, upright and hairy, form a capital support for the misbehaving stem of Yellow Rose, and the poppies, having thus lent the tulips aid in time of need, go a step farther and cover their drying foliage with a handsome acanthuslike screen of green surmounted by the noble scarlet and salmon blooms of early June. This is a very simple, practical, and safe experiment in succession crops, and is heartily commended. Following these poppies comes the bloom of a few plants of campanula Die Fee, and I am trying this year the experiment of Campanula pyramidalis in blues and whites thickly planted among the poppies, for late summer bloom when the poppy leaves shall have vanished. This is a large demand to make upon the earth in a small space, but, with encouragement by means of several topdressings of well-rotted manure, I hope to accomplish this crop succession satisfactorily. Among the yellow columbines {Aquilegia chrysantha) I generally tuck quantities of white or purple stocks, those known as Sutton's Perfection. The aquilegia is cut close to the ground as soon as its seed-pods take the place of flowers; and the stocks are then beginning their long period of bloom. Canterbury bells are usually the centres of colonies of annual asters (my great favorites are the single Aster Sinensis, in chosen colors — not to be had in every seed-hst, by the way), and of groups of gladiolus bulbs so arranged as to hide the vacancy left when the Canterbury bells must be Hfted from the ground after blooming.

In four places in the garden where rather low-growing things are desired, are alternate groups of a handsome, dark, velvety-red sweet-wilham — the seed of which was given me by Miss Jekyll, who described this as the color of the sweet-william of the old English cottage garden — and wellgrown plants of Stohesia cyanea. As soon as the fine heads of sweet-william begin to crisp and dry, the beautiful lavender-blue flowers of the Stokesia take up the wondrous tale, and a veil of delicate blue is drawn over the spots which a few days since ran red with a riot of dark loveliness.

Among larkspurs I plant Salvia patens, which to look tidy when blooming must be carefully staked while the stems are pliable and tender. Second crops of delphinium bloom seem to me a mistake — I beHeve the vitality of the plant is somewhat impaired and the color of the flowers is

MUNSTEAD PRIMROSE AND TULIP WHITE SWAN ON SLOPE BELOW POPLAR AND PINE seldom as clear and fine as in the first crop. Green leaves in plenty should be left, of course: the lower part of Salvia patens is not attractive and its pale-blue flowers have added beauty rising from the fresh delphinium foliage.

The plan of planting the everlasting pea (Lathyrus latifolius, var. The Pearl) among delphiniums, to follow their bloom by clouds of white flowers, is recommended by an English authority. To continue the blue of tall delphinium, the very best succession crop is that of Delphinium Chinensis or grandiflora, the lower branching one with the cut leaf; a fine hardy perennial in exquisite shades of pale and deep blue, whose flowers are at their very best immediately after the spikes of their blue sisters have gone into retirement.

The fine new Dropmore variety of Anchusa Italica is exceedingly good placed near the vigorous green spikes of the leaves of the white false dragonhead (Physostegia Virginica^ var. alba) : when the latter is low, the great anchusa leaves nearly cover it; and after the crop of brilliant blue flowers is exhausted, and the robust plants are cut back, the physostegia raises its tall white spikes of bloom a few weeks later, brightening an otherwise dull spot.

Platycodons, both blue and white, are capital to dwell among and succeed Canterbury bells; the platycodons to be followed again in their turn by the later-blooming Campanula pyramidalis.

Will some kind garden-lover make me his debtor by suggesting a good neighbor and successor to the hardy phlox? This has been a problem in a locality where frost is due in early September, and some of the tenderer things, such as cosmos, are really nothing but a risk. If one could raze one's phloxes to the ground once they had finished their best bloom, the case might be different. But the French growers now advise (according to interesting cultural instructions for phlox-growing issued by one specialist) the retention of all flower stalks during winter ! This makes necessary an immense amount of work in the way of cutting, toward early September, in order that the phloxes may keep some decent appearance as shrublike plants of green.

To follow the bloom of 7m Germanica (of which I find two varieties planted together, Mrs. Horace Darwin and Gloire de Hillegom, to give a charming succession crop of flowers with a change of hue as well), I have already recommended the planting of gladiolus. Lilium candidum growing

PEONIES AND CANTERBURY BELLS

DISCREET USE OF RAMBLER ROSE, LADY GAY back of iris leaves is also effective, and, by carefully considered planting, gladiolus forms a between-crop of no little value.

Of succession crops to follow each other in places apart, it is hardly worth while to speak. This is an easy matter to arrange; the fading of color before one shrubbery group acting as a signal to another place to brighten, Munstead primroses (cut, page 46) are scarcely out of bloom when tulip Cottage Maid and arabis are in beauty, as in cut on page 42, in an unused spot under grapes, and these are quickly followed by rambler roses (cut, page 48), peonies, and Canterbury bells in the garden proper (cut, page 48). Bordering on the turf edges of a walk in a kitchen garden three succession crops of flowers have been obtained by the use of these three plantings. Roses stand a foot back from the grass. Between them and the turf long, irregular masses of Tulipa Gesneriana, var. rosea, bloom rich rose-red in May. The roses follow in June; and Beauty of Oxford verbena covers the dying tulip leaves with clusters of wonderful pink bloom which lasts well into the autumn.

I have sometimes thought that a white garden would be a simple matter to arrange, and that, under certain very green and fresh conditions and with plenty of rich shadow to give its tones variety, it should not be monotonous. The procession of white flowers is so remarkable, beginning, say, with the snowdrop, bloodroot, sweet white violet, and the arabis in its single and double forms, followed quickly by Iberis Gibraltarica and Phlox suhulata, white \dolas — all these for the low early flowers — and followed by larger, taller, and more massive blooms, from peonies on to Canterbury bells, thence to lilies, white hollyhocks, gypsophilas, Pearl achillea, and white phloxes. Dozens of flower names occur at the mere thought. It seems as though every flower must have its white representative. Whether an all-white garden would be truly agreeable or no, I cannot say, but I do hold that sufficient white is not used in our gardens — that a certain brilliancy in sunlight is lost by the absence of masses of white flowers, succession crops of which it is so easy to obtain and maintain. With the free use of white flowers, there is sure to be a fresh proclamation of beauty, too, at twilight and under the moon — arguments which must appeal to the amateur gardener of poetic taste.

IV Joys And Sorrows Of A Trial Garden

'Here is a daffodil.

Six-winged as seraphs are; They took her from a Spanish hill.

Wild as a wind-blown star.

When she was born

The angels came And showed her how her petals should be worn.

Now she is tame — She hath a Latin name."

— "A London Flower Show,"

Evelyn Underhill.

IV

JOYS AND SORROWS OF A TRIAL GARDEN

THE three indispensable adjuncts of a good flower garden, when considering its upkeep, are, in the order of their importance : a tool-house well stocked, a good supply of compost, and space for a trial garden. In planting for color effect the trial garden is a necessity. The space for it may be small: no matter; plant in it one of a kind. The gardener happy in the possession of the visuaUzing sense may take the one plant and in his or her imagination readily see its effect as disposed in rows, groups, or large masses.

My own trial garden space is very small; and my idea has been from the first to secure plants for it in multiples of four, if possible according to size. The formtil flower garden happens to be arranged ahke in all four quarters of its plan, and this habit of balanced planting makes the trying out of eight or sixteen of a kind a really economical thing in the end. If the plants please, and the colors form an agreeable combination with others already in the garden, their removal in the autumn from trial-garden rows to certain spots in the garden proper is simple.