I have asked a professional artist, Mr Mathews, to draw me the kind of a flower-bed that he likes. It is shown in Fig. 21. It is a border,—a strip of land two or three feet wide along a fence. This is the place where pigweeds usually grow. Here he has planted marigolds, gladiolus, golden rod, wild asters, China asters, and—best of all—hollyhocks. Any one would like that flower-garden It has some of that local and indefinable charm that always attaches to an “old-fashioned garden” with its medley of form and color Nearly every yard has some such strip of land along a rear walk or fence or against a building It is the easiest thing to plant it,—ever so much easier than digging the characterless geranium bed into the center of an inoffensive lawn. The suggestions are carried further in 22 to 25.
Speaking of the old-fashioned garden recalls one of William Falconer’s excellent paragraphs (“Gardening,” November 15, 1897, p. 75): “We tried it in Schenley Park this year. We needed a handy dumping ground, and hit on the head of a deep ravine between two woods; into it we dumped hundreds upon hundreds of wagon loads of rock and clay, filling it near to the top, then surfaced it with good soil. Here we planted some shrubs, and broadcast among them set out scarlet poppies, eschscholtzias, dwarf nasturtiums, snapdragons, pansies, marigolds, and all manner of hardy herbaceous plants, having enough of each sort to make a mass of its kind and color, and the effect was fine. In the middle was a plantation of hundreds of clumps of Japan and German irises interplanted, thence succeeded by thousands of gladioli, and banded with montbretias, from which we had flowers till frost. The steep face of this hill was graded a little and a series of winding stone steps set into it, making the descent into the hollow quite easy; the stones were the rough uneven slabs secured in blasting the rocks when grading in other parts of the park, and both along outer edges of the steps and the sides of the upper walk a wide belt of moss pink was planted; and the banks all about were planted with shrubs, vines, wild roses, columbines, and other plants. More cameras and kodaks were leveled by visitors at this piece of gardening than at any other spot in the park, and still we had acres of painted summer beds.”
Contents of the flower-borders.
There is no prescribed rule as to what one should put into these informal flower-borders. Put in them the plants you like. Perhaps the greater part of them should be perennials that come up of themselves every spring, and that are hardy and reliable. Wild flowers are particularly effective. Every one knows that many of the native herbs of woods and glades are more attractive than some of the most prized garden flowers. The greater part of these native flowers grow readily in cultivation, sometimes even in places which, in soil and exposure, are much unlike their native haunts. Many of them make thickened roots, and they may be safely transplanted at any time after the flowers have passed. To most persons the wild flowers are less known than many exotics that have smaller merit, and the extension of cultivation is constantly tending to annihilate them. Here, then, in the informal flower-border, is an opportunity to rescue them. Then one may sow in freely of easy-growing annuals, as marigolds, China asters, petunias and phloxes, and sweet peas.
One of the advantages of these borders lying at the boundary is that they are always ready to receive more plants, unless they are full. That is, their symmetry is not marred if some plants are pulled out and others are put in. And if the weeds now and then get a start, very little harm is done. Such a border half full of weeds is handsomer than the average hole-in-the-lawn geranium bed. An ample border may receive wild plants every month in the year when the frost is out of the ground. Plants are dug in the woods or fields, whenever one is on an excursion, even if in July. The tops are cut off, the roots kept moist until they are placed in the border; most of these much-abused plants will grow. To be sure, one will secure some weeds; but then, the weeds are a part of the collection! Of course, some plants will resent this treatment, but the border may be a happy family, and be all the better and more personal because it is the result of moments of relaxation. Such a border has something new and interesting every month of the growing season; and even in the winter the tall clumps of grasses and aster-stems hold their banners above the snow and are a source of delight to every frolicsome bevy of snowbirds.
I have spoken of a weedland to suggest how simple and easy a thing it is to make an attractive mass-plantation. One may make the most of a rock (Fig. 26) or bank, or other undesirable feature of the place. Dig up the ground and make it rich, and then set plants in it. You will not get it to suit you the first year, and perhaps not the second or the third; you can always pull out plants and put more in. I should not want a lawn-garden so perfect that I could not change it in some character each year; I should lose interest in it.