throughout.

By planting low-growing kinds in front, and backing them up with kinds
of a taller growth, with the very tallest growers in the rear, the
effect of a bank of flowers and foliage can be secured. This the
illustration clearly shows.

Shrubbery can be used in connection with perennials with most
satisfactory results. This, as the reader will see, was done on the
grounds from which the picture was taken. Here we have a combination
which cannot fail to afford pleasure. I would not advise any home-maker
to confine his border to plants of one class. Use shrubs and perennials
together, and scatter annuals here and there, and have bulbs all along
the border's edge.

I want to call particular attention to one thing which the picture under
consideration emphasizes very forcibly, and that is--the unstudied
informality of it. It seems to have planned itself. It is like one of
Nature's fence-corner bits of gardening.

For use in the background we have several most excellent plants. The
Delphinium--Larkspur--grows to a height of seven or eight feet, in rich
soil, sending up a score or more of stout stalks from each strong clump
of roots. Two or three feet of the upper part of these stalks will be
solid with a mass of flowers of the richest, most intense blue
imaginable. I know of no other flower of so deep and striking a shade
of this rather rare color in the garden. In order to guard against
injury from strong winds, stout stakes should be set about each clump,
and wound with wire or substantial cord to prevent the flowering stalks
from being broken down. There is a white variety, _Chinensis_, that is
most effective when used in combination with the blue, which you will
find catalogued as Delphinium _formosum_. If several strong clumps are
grouped together, the effect will be magnificent when the plants are in
full bloom. By cutting away the old stalks as soon as they have
developed all their flowers, new ones can be coaxed to grow, and under
this treatment the plants can be kept in bloom for many weeks.

"Golden Glow" Rudbeckia is quite as strong a grower as the Delphinium,
and a more prolific bloomer does not exist. It will literally cover
itself with flowers of the richest golden yellow, resembling in shape
and size those of the "decorative" type of Dahlia. This plant is a very
strong grower, and so aggressive that it will dispute possession with
any plant near it, and on this account it should never be given a