"To those of you who have started outdoor bulb beds, the bedding list will be of some service. Marguerites look well in such a bed. Often one sees a border of ageratum about such a one. There is always a sort of stiff effect about such borders, however. A canna bed is after the same order, yet is effective. Salvia, or scarlet sage, looks well in wide borders, or near the underpinning of the house. Both these may act as bedding plants.
"There are three other kinds of gardens I should like to bring to your minds—the rock garden, the herb garden and the wild-flower garden. This last we shall have to leave for another time, however.
"Whenever a rockery is mentioned to some people they shrug their shoulders, and murmur something about a mere heap of rocks. Now, a rock garden may be very pretty, or very ugly. Such a garden should never be stuck out in the front yard to hit one in the face. But if you have a place in your yard, which is near the woods or in the vicinity of trees, or by a rocky ledge—in short, if you have any place with a bit of wildness surrounding it, use this for a rockery. If your yard is just a plain, tame, civilized yard, you'd better leave the rock garden out. I know of a lady living in a city, whose backyard is a rocky ledge. That ledge itself told her what her garden ought to be. It just cried out to her, 'Build a rock garden on me.' And she did it. Any other kind of a garden would have been out of place and taste there. Wherever a rocky ledge is found, there is a possibility for a rock garden.
"To have a good garden of this sort, one must have earth as well as rocks. Earth must be put into all the crevices of rock, so that there is some depth to it, and at such an angle that it won't be washed out by hard rains. A rock garden should have an earth foundation. I mean that there must be much of earth about it. I saw a charming one, which had only climbing nasturtiums planted over it. It was a great rock jutting out, and extending back into the yard—a big, flat, irregular affair—and all over it were these running vines. It was very simple and very effective. Go to the woods and seek out ferns which are growing in rocky places. Take what little earth they have about them, and try to give them a similar position in your own rockery. Bring back some leaf mould from the woods, and mix the garden soil for the rockery. Candytuft, dwarf phlox, stonecrop, morning glory, saxifrage, bleeding heart, rock cress, myrtle, thrift, columbine, bell flower, and moss pink. Get some moss, too, for chinks between rocks.
"If we could go back to old colonial days, and visit a dame's garden, I am sure we should find a little herb garden there. Our mothers might call these herbs pot herbs. Here all the flavourings for the soups were raised. Here sweet lavender might be found, its flowers used to make fragrant the bed linen. Horehound, anise and others were used in medicines; while little caraway seeds made delicious the cakes and cookies. I can see bunches of dried sage hung in the attic.
"Even with us there might be good use made of this garden both at home and at school. We do, of course, grow parsley, which is an herb, but the others seem to have dropped out of our gardens. We might at least grow next summer the sage and savoury for the turkey stuffing.
"Herbs need a sandy, well-worked soil. Seed should be sown in drills about twelve inches apart. The seed should be sown in early spring, as soon as the ground is warm. Sprinkle the seed just below the surface, and cover lightly with soil.
"A list of common herbs includes the following: Anise, balm, basil, borage, caraway, catnip, coriander, dill, fennel, horehound, hop, hyssop, lavender, pot marigold, sweet and pot marjoram, parsley, pennyroyal, rosemary, rue, sage, savoury, tansy, sorrel, thyme, and wormwood. It would be of little use to plant all of these, even to see what the plants were like. I would suggest your trying lavender, sage, savoury, and dill.
"Lavender seed is very slow to germinate, so sow the seed plentifully in early spring. The soil should have a dusting of lime over it as lavender plants enjoy lime. The flower is the part you wish. Pick these flower stalks before the flowers get old. Dry, and then sprinkle the dried flowers in the linen chest. Lavender is very sweet, and is often spoken of as sweet lavender. To this day one will hear women singing in the streets of London, 'Sweet lavender, buy my sweet lavender.'
"Sage likes a good, well-drained soil. It, too, likes lime. The little seedlings should be thinned out to stand about ten inches apart. When you see flowers forming cut the sage plant and quickly dry. It makes a pretty border plant in the garden. Savoury is also a border plant. But this is a hardy annual, while lavender and sage are perennials. It likes a light but rich soil. Both the leaves and flowers are used in soup flavouring. "Dill is also sown in early spring. It is the seed of the dill plant, and not the leaves and flowers, which is the useful part. The seeds are used in the making of pickles.