hardy shrubs and plants one of the most attractive ways in which they can be used. Such a border will vary of course in size, shape, and formation, with the requirements of individual places and must be designed to suit them, but let us suppose a lot of one hundred and fifty feet frontage, and two hundred feet depth, with an eastern exposure. The house is placed midway in the lot and only far enough away from the northern boundary to permit of a screen of planting. It is common to place the house as nearly in the centre of the lot as possible, but a mistake, for such a location reduces the size of the lawn and the gardening possibilities greatly. We would occupy the entire southern and western boundaries of the lot, and perhaps a portion of the eastern, with the border, which should vary in width from five or six feet up to twenty feet, with a curved outline on the lawn. This border should be planted principally with shrubs arranged in groups, but a few trees such as Birches, Magnolias, and Judas trees should be used, and a few evergreens, such as Retinosporas and quite a number of evergreen shrubs. Where a great variety of hardy plants is desired the entire margin of this border might be filled with them, but a more effective arrangement is to plant them in bold groups, one variety in a group, and alternating them with groups of shrubs. Some of the stronger growing plants such as Sunflowers, Foxgloves, and single Hollyhocks might be placed in the middle or back part of the border, and the Japanese lilies,Auratum, Rubrum, and Album,- and our American species, Superbum, can always be planted in, and combined to advantage with, groups of rhododendrons and azaleas. After such a border is completely planted with shrubs and hardy plants there will be many opportunities for introducing colonies of spring flowering bulbs, Tulips, Narcissuses, etc. and the advantage of using bulbs in this way is that the planting is permanent and they are really more effective than in formal shaped beds cut out of the lawn. It is the intention to keep this border in a cultivated condition, free from weeds and grass, and to give an annual mulching of manure. A lot of this size, planted so densely on its boundary, should have its lawn kept quite free and open and have only a few choice specimens planted on it and no large trees, except street trees on the edge of the sidewalk.

I do not claim that this is the most artistic arrangement that can be made for a small suburban place. I have in mind a most

artistic place that is almost enclosed by a quite narrow planting of ordinary trees and shrubs, with a mass of trees back of the house and a single magnificent specimen tree on the front lawn. This is a satisfactory arrangement, as an example of fine architecture is satisfactory, but all the variety, interest, and pleasure of gardening is lost.

In larger grounds, where a vegetable garden and perhaps an orchard are features, the opportunities for using hardy shrubs and plants are much greater and more varied. The vegetable garden may be made the most interesting and delightful place imaginable. Usually it is simply a field of vegetables fully exposed from all points of the ground and very often unsightly. Now the vegetable garden should be concealed from the lawn and house, and this necessity at once suggests a border, or boundary planting, of shrubs and herbaceous plants as described for the smaller suburban lot. This planting should not only hide the garden but should hide its outlines, which are usually rectangular. The garden itself should be enclosed with a hedge, which should show from the inside of the garden but never from the lawn. California privet makes a very satisfactory garden hedge, but where that is not hardy, hemlock spruce can be used. Nothing makes a finer hedge than this, but it is slower growing than the privet, of which I have seen a perfect hedge five feet high made in three seasons, starting with two year old plants. A convenient walk from the house should pass through the shrubbery into the garden, and of course a convenient entrance will be made for bringing in manure, etc. A walk should be laid out all around the garden five to six feet wide, with a border for flowers six feet wide between the walk and the hedge. There should be also two walks six feet wide crossing each other at right angles and dividing the garden into four rectangular pieces of about equal size. On both sides of these walks, Grapes, dwarf Pears, and small fruits can be planted and also on the inner sides of the outer walk, if desired. The walks can be made of any material that is convenient, and need not be expensive. In one garden that I know, they are made of grass and kept as a lawn would be. I know that there are objections that can be urged against grass walks, but the owner of the garden in question does not find them objectionable, and they are certainly more pleasing to the eye than gravel walks. The border between the walk and the hedge should be given up

entirely to flowers; hardy plants should predominate, but there should be liberal spaces reserved for summer-blooming bulbs and annuals. In the hardy plants each variety should be grouped and as many sorts used as thought desirable, but in making a selection flowers suitable for cutting as well as for making a garden effect should be preferred. Such bold and striking plants as single Hollyhocks and Foxgloves should be planted in decided masses, and a border with eastern or southern exposure should be used for hybrid perpetual Roses.

A vegetable garden, arranged as described and properly cared for, in addition to being an interesting and pleasant place to visit, would furnish an abundant supply of cut flowers for the house, for the church, for the hospital, and for friends, and I think one of the keenest pleasures a garden can afford is the ability to give away flowers without stint, and the garden of hardy flowers enables one to give away plants as well as flowers, for the natural increase soon makes a surplus.

In large grounds there are often opportunities for using hardy plants and shrubs in a freer and more picturesque way than any I have suggested; that is, the planting of them in groups and masses to produce the same effects as if they were growing wild. Indeed, after the first careful planting, they should be allowed to grow wild without culture and uncontrolled. The naturalizing of hardy material does not mean that we should attempt to imitate the thickets, woods, or meadows, on our lawns. It does mean the taking advantage of a brookside for groups and colonies of Irises, Narcissuses, hardy Ferns, the splendid Superbum lilies, and the scores of beautiful things that will thrive in the grass if it is not to be cut with the lawn mower. It means the planting an irregular group of Foxgloves on the edge of a wood, or the covering a rough bank with a mass of Kalmias or native Azaleas or native Rhododendrons or with all of these shrubs together. It means the increasing the beauty and interest of the wild and rough parts of a place an hundred-fold, but considerable taste and knowledge of materials are needed to produce good results.

We must not overlook the claims of climbing shrubs and plants to our consideration. No gardening scheme, large or small, should ignore them. We can imagine a most delightful garden where they, in connection with trees and shrubbery, alone are used; and, if we consider their decorative effect, foliage, gracefulness of

growth, and the great beauty of flowers that many of them have, we must admit they are entitled to a more important place in our gardens. The free use of the Clematis family alone would give a thousand-fold more beauty than is obtainable with the most lavish use of bedding plants, and here we not only consider the large flowered type but the smaller flowered sorts as well, with their luxuriance of growth and their charming effect, when used as tree, shrub, hedge, or fence drapery. And then the Climbing Roses what a glorious possibility here, with their showers of bloom in June.

Climbers will not exhibit their best charms if trained in a stiff and formal manner; they must, in whatever position used, be allowed to grow untrammeled. My neighbor's garden furnished a good illustration of this. He planted common Morning Glories all about his porch, with the intention of training them on strings later, but he was diverted from his intention and the Morning Glories were allowed to grow as they would. The effect was most charming; they clambered over every shrub they could reach, shared a trellis with a Clematis, and, where they could find nothing to climb on, formed mounds of green of the most tangled and pleasing description. Morning Glories, common as they are, if used rightly, produce the most delightful effects. One of the right ways is to sow them among tall grass, or among low bushes and shrubbery, and as they renew themselves annually from seed they may properly be considered hardy. As a rule vines should not be trained in a formal manner. If you would have them exhibit their best graces they must be allowed to grow uncontrolled. All know the uses that vines are commonly put to- that of covering the walls of the house, furnishing shade for porch or arbor, and the covering of screens and trellises. Besides these, almost every place of any size offers opportunities for their growth in a freer and more natural way that will greatly add to the charm and delight of the garden. Perhaps a neglected shrubbery, unsightly in itself, will afford support for such easily grown things as Honeysuckles, Clematis Virginiana, and C. Flammula, or the common. wild Morning Glory, so plentiful in many places, would be quite at home here. An unsightly fence might be partly concealed and made a thing of beauty with Climbing Roses, Honeysuckles, or Clematises, or an old tree, past its prime and beginning to be unsightly, would be the very thing on which to grow such vigorous

vines as the Aristolochia, Wistaria, Trumpet vine, and the common Virginia creeper. In how many places are seen evergreens in a half dead condition, which only procrastination has spared from the axe, and as unsightly as could well be; but nothing could be better on which to grow the Large-Flowered Clematis, which furnishes a profusion of lovely bloom that no words can describe. Some vines, like the Golden Honeysuckle, planted in the grass, will pile themselves up in masses, and if any shrub is within reach will finally clamber over it, producing an effect entirely pleasing. There is nothing more charming in Nature than the combination of shrub or tree with wild vines. Who has not seen the living canopy of green formed by the wild grape over the top of some tree or the stronger growing shrubs, or how some wild vine converts a thicket of brambles, and an old fence into objects of beauty that the most ambitious gardener might copy?

It is not possible in a paper of this length even to name all of the desirable hardy shrubs and plants now obtainable, but I think it is well to give a list of what I would commend as the very best, taking into consideration their ease of culture, as well as the beauty of their bloom, form, and foliage. I know many would disagree with me as to the contents of this list, but I am confident that the beginner could make no mistake in including any or all of the varieties named in this planting list. I have tried to name these plants and shrubs somewhat in the order they hold in my esteem, but this is a difficult matter, as I am very apt to think the finest thing to be the last fine thing that I have seen.

LIST OF PLANTS.

Hybrid Perpetual Roses in va

riety including

Paul Neyron,

Ulrich Brunner,

Mme. Gabriel Luizet,
General Jacqueminot,
Anna de Diesbach,
Magna Charta,

Baroness Rothschild,
Captain Christy, and
Mabel Morrison,

Anemone Japonica alba,

Single Hollyhocks,
Japanese Irises,

Lilium auratum,

Rudbeckia hirta,

Aquilegias in variety,
Yucca filamentosc,

Herbaceous Paeonies- single

and double, in variety,

Lilium speciosum,

Helianthus latiflorus,

Foxgloves,

Tall Perennial Phloxes in va