home-lot is not elastic. Small
grounds necessitate small collections if we would avoid cluttering up
the place in a manner that makes it impossible to grow anything well.
Shrubs must have elbow-room in order to display their attractions to the
best advantage. Keep this in mind, and set out only as many as there
will be room for when they have fully developed. It may cost you a pang
to discard an old favorite, but often it has to be done out of regard
for the future welfare of the kinds you feel you _must have_. If you
overstock your garden, it will give you many pangs to see how the plants
in it suffer from the effect of crowding. If you cannot have _all_ the
good things, have the very best of the list, and try to grow them so
well that they will make up in quality for the lack in quantity. I know
of a little garden in which but three plants grow, but the owner of them
gives them such care that these three plants attract more attention from
passers-by than any other garden on that street.

* * * * *

Be methodical in your garden-work. Keep watch of everything, and when
you see something that needs doing, do it. And do it well. One secret of
success in gardening is in doing everything as if it was _the_ one thing
to be done. Slight nothing.

* * * * *

For vines that do not grow thick enough to hide everything with their
foliage, a lattice framework of lath, painted white, is the most
satisfactory support, because of the pleasing color-contrast between it
and the plants trained over it. Both support and plant will be
ornamental, and one will admirably supplement the other. The lattice
will be an attractive feature of the garden when the vine that grew over
it is dead, if it is kept neatly painted.

* * * * *

But for the rampant grower a coarse-meshed wire netting is just as good,
and considerably less expensive, in the long run, as it will do duty for
many years, if taken care of at the end of the season. Roll it up and
put it under cover before the fall rains set in.

* * * * *

The simple fact of newness is nothing in any plant's favor. Unless it
has real merit, it will not find purchasers after the first season.
Better wait until you know what a plant is before investing in it. We
have so many excellent plants with whose good qualities we are familiar
that it is not necessary to run an