THE FINER HARDY FLOWERS, AND HOW TO GROW THEM.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2183, 23 February 1881, Page 4

THE FINER HARDY FLOWERS, AND HOW TO GROW THEM.

[From "The Field.”] The many beginners in the culture of hardy Rowers who are at present, and will bo during the autumn, considering their operations, will do well to bear in mind the following points : —Select only good plants, and throw away weedy and worthless kinds; there is no scarcity of the very best. See good collections, and consult good judges in making y°u r selection. Put, at first, the good kinds selected in line* across four-foot nursery beds, so that a stock of young and strong plants may be at band, and that you be able to exchange with others as well as form arrangements or groups in any way desired. The mixed border is only one of many ways in which hardy flowers may be grown. But, as a mixed border will be formed by many, it is essential that it should be well and carefully done. Place it where it cannot be robbed by the roots of trees ; see that the ground is thoroughly prepared, and rich and deep enough—never less than of the best friable soil. The soil should be so deep that in a dry season the roots could seek their supplies far below the surface. On the making of the border depends, in fact, whether the vegetation will be noble and graceful, or stunted. If limited to one border only, some variation in the soil will be necessary to meet tile wants of peat and moisture-loving plants. In planting, plant in groups, and not in the old dotting way. Never repeat the same plant along the border at intervals, as used to bo done with favourites. Plant a bold, natural group of it sufficiently spaced, or two or three groups if you must have so many, and then be done with it. , Do not be particular to graduate the plants from the back to the front, as is generally done, but occasionally let a bold and sturdy plant come towards the edge; and, on the other hand, lot a little carpet of a dwarf plant pass in here and there to the back, so as to giro a broken and beautiful instead of a monotonous surface. Have no patience with bare ground. Cover the border entirely with dwarf plants ; do not put them along the front of the border only, M used to he done. Lot hepaticas and double and other primroses, and saxifrages, and golden moneywort, and stoneorops, and forget-me-nots, and dwarf phloxes, and many like plants, cover tho ground everywhere—the book as well as too front of the border—among the tall plants. Lot those little ground plants form broad patches and colonies here and there by themselves occasionally, and then let them pass into and under tho other plants. A white lily will be none the worse, probably all the better, for having a colony of creeping forget-me-n®ts about it in the winter or spring. The charming variety that may be thus obtained is infinite. The border should remain for years, without any digging in the usual sense. All digging operations should bo confined to changes and to tho filling up of blanks with good plants, and to the re-orrangemont of ground plants. If the border is in tho kitchen garden, or any other position in which it is desired to cut it off from its surroundings, erect a trellis from the back of tho border from six to ten feet high, and cover this with climbing plants, clematis, rose, sweet-briar,- honeysuckle,_ or any beautiful and thoroughly hardy climbing plants, not twined too stiffiy, but allowed to grow into free wreaths. Roses of the very hardiest kind only should be employed, so as to guard against gaps in severe winters ; tho old single clematis, the mountain and tho sweet autumn olematis (0. flammula), as well as other single kinds, should have a place here as much as the larger forms. The trellis may be made in tho asual way, of wood or iron, or in a simpler or certainly handsomer way, from tho rough tree posts and branches. In ease tho soil is not very deep or not very well prepared, and the surface not covered with green life in the way laid down, it will ho well in many cases to mulch the ground by placing a oouplo of inches of some light sweet dressing for it in summer. With all plants of doubtful merit which grow coarsely and are opt to overrun other things, and, after oil, furnish but poor and ■hort-lived bloom, such as same of the Michaelmas daisies and the golden rods, and m host of other plants that have been grown In gardens, the best way is to take them ont to the shrubberies and ditches and let them take their chance. Allow no digging or pottering on tho part of persons who do not know tibe flowers.

Have no geometry at all. When tho things are old and have got rather too thick, as they say, never hesitate to move them on a wet day in the middle of summer as well as in the middle of winter. Take them up and put a fresh bold group in fresh ground ; they will be rooted and will have plenty ot roots by the -winter, and flower much stronger the following spring than if they had been transplanted in spring or in winter. Do not pay much attention to labelling; if a plant is not worth knowing it is not worth growing ; lot each good thing bo so boldly and so well grown and placed that it impresses its individuality upon ns.