Color in the Garden
In arranging a garden, select flowers which will keep it full of blossom from May to October, and remember when planting and sowing that some colors are more beautiful together than others. The color arrangement of a garden is always difficult, but one must learn by experience. Scarlet and crimson, crimson and blue, should not be put together, and magenta-colored flowers are never satisfactory. Whites and yellows, and whites and blues, are always suitable together, and for the rest you must please yourself.
The Use of Catalogues
A good catalogue gives illustrations of most flowers, and in many cases its cultural directions are very helpful. As an extension of the notes that follow nothing could be more useful than two or three catalogues issued by good growers.
Gardening Diaries
It is a good thing for a gardener to keep a diary. At the beginning of the book he would make a plan of the garden, to scale: that is to say, allowing one inch, or more, in the plan for every foot of bed. In this plan would be marked the position of the bulbs and perennial plants. The diary would take note of everything that happened in the garden. The sowing of seeds would be recorded; also when the seedlings first appear; when they are thinned out, and when they blossom: in fact, everything to do with the life of the plants. A little collection of drawings of seedlings would be of great use in helping to distinguish them another year. At the end of the book might be written the names of any plants that the owner would like to have, or any special information about the culture of a plant, or the description of some arrangement which had been admired in another garden.
Flower-Shows
Where several children have gardens in the same big garden, or the same neighborhood, a flower-show is very interesting to hold now and then. To do this it is needful first to find some one willing to act as judge, and—if agreeable—to give several small prizes in addition to certificates of merit. The different things for which prizes are offered will depend, of course, upon what the competitors can grow. There might be prizes for different flowers, for collections of flowers, and for lettuces or radishes, if there are enough competitors who grow such things. But the most important prize would go perhaps to the owner of the best-kept garden. Another for the best arrangement of bunches of flowers, garden and wild, might lead to some very pretty bouquets.