s like sweet rocket]

Some perennials require to be planted two feet apart, and in some, like
peonies, three feet is close enough, for in time their tops will meet.
Eighteen inches apart is enough to allow for the majority and some
slender ones require but one foot. All this should be taken into
consideration when determining the width of the bed.

Starting with the proposition that the average plant requires eighteen
inches headroom, and that the first row may be planted six inches
within the bed at the front--nine to twelve is better--and the second
one back eighteen inches, and six from the back, we find that with rows
two plants deep it requires a bed two feet and a half in width. This
should be the narrowest allowance you should make. In a four-foot bed
you can place them three deep, and one five and a half takes four
plants. In other words, you increase your width in jumps of eighteen
inches at a time. While this is not actually necessary, it is best and
applies only to the widest and narrowest points. The intervening curved
lines will vary from this measurement but it makes no difference,
because you do not plant in straight rows from back to front as one
would cabbages.

In planting at boundary lines or at buildings, the taller ones should
be used at the back, but the semi-tall ones--say three feet in
height--should occasionally be brought well toward the front in order
to avoid stiffness and to add irregularity to the general effect. If a
house or fence is at the back, flowering vines like the _Clematis
paniculata_, or _C. flammula_, or any annual flowering vine, may be
used here and there. In detached beds which may be seen from all sides,
the taller plants are set in the middle.

The effect is much better if you plant in groups of four, six, or more
of one kind. It relieves the effect of spottiness. Plant in an
irregular manner so as to avoid stiffness or lumpiness, and let one
group run in behind another. If you plant large groups in a pear-shaped
form with the narrow stem end slightly curved and let the larger end of
the adjoining pear-shaped group run up to the narrow stem of its
neighbor, you will produce the effect I suggest. The plants you buy,
being small, if planted as suggested will not occupy all the ground the
first year. These spaces may be carpeted with annuals for a year or so,
or planted with gladioli, lilies or _Hyacinth candicans_.

I will not attempt to discuss the fighting and clashing