These were planted in conspicuous places here and there against the other masses.

Here are one hundred excellent and interesting bushes planted in a yard only fifty feet wide and one hundred feet deep, and yet the place has as much room in it as it had before. There is abundant opportunity along the borders for dropping in cannas, dahlias, hollyhocks, asters, geraniums, coleuses, and other brilliant plants. The bushes will soon begin to crowd, to be sure, but a mass is wanted, and the narrowness of the plantations will allow each bush to develop itself laterally to perfection. If the borders become too thick, however, it is an easy matter to remove some of the bushes; but they probably will not. Picture the color and variety and life in that little yard. And if a pigweed now and then gets a start in the border, it would do no harm to let it alone: it belongs there! Then picture the same area filled with disconnected, spotty, dyspeptic, and unspirited flower-beds and rose bushes!

Various examples.

Strong and bare foundations should be relieved by heavy planting. Fill the corners with snow-drifts of foliage. Plant with a free hand, as if you meant it (compare Figs. 46 and 47). The corner by the steps is a perennial source of bad temper. The lawn-mower will not touch it, and the grass has to be cut with a butcher-knife. If nothing else comes to hand, let a burdock grow in it (Fig. 1).

The tennis-screen may be relieved by a background (Fig. 48), and a clump of ribbon-grass or something else is out of the way against a post (Fig. 49).

Excellent mass effects may be secured by cutting well-established plants of sumac, ailanthus, basswood, and other strong-growing things, to the ground each year, for the purpose of securing the stout shoots. Figure 50 will give the hint.