picture of this garden of mine.  You see right off how tiring and dazzling the garden of too many little dots of colour could be.  Look about in nature—­see the beautiful range of the butterfly weed, the pinky purple of Joe Pye, the scarlet of cardinal flowers, the blue of certain asters, the pink of bouncing Bet, the yellow of tansy and goldenrod.  Nature is constantly presenting perfect splashes of brilliant colour here and there.  And yet it is not inharmonious.  Why?  One reason is that much of the colour is in great masses, and what is not has been softened by stretches of soft green.

“Let us take a hint from this for our small gardens.  Plant colours in masses, and have breaks of green in between.  Not a bad idea!  I seem to hear you say.

“Then a garden should have a strong time element about it.  By this I mean that one should plan a garden for a round of bloom.  Why have all the blooms in August?  If you look at this bulb time-table I shall have ready for you, you will find that it is possible to start with bulbs.  Snowdrops and crocuses will gladly usher in a continuous round of bloom for you.  I do not mean that these two will bloom continuously.  Not at all!  But I mean they are the starters.  There are conditions, where spring bloom and fall bloom alone is desired.  This is the case with all school gardens where summer care is impossible.  Another table called a garden of continuous bloom will help you plan this.

“Another point to think of is persistency.  Why not plant some seed which will produce plants that come up year after year?  Why not have some hardy perennials and some self-sowing annuals?  Poppy and cornflower sow themselves.  These are annuals.  Think of the perennials, which come year after year to welcome us.  I think you should have hardy matter in your gardens.  Peonies come up year after year, iris takes care of itself, helianthus or perennial sunflower bobs up each year.

“George asked me one day, what I meant when I spoke of herbaceous plants.  A herbaceous plant is one with a non-woody stem, as geraniums.  Mock orange is not herbaceous, because it has a woody stem.  When I speak of hardy plants, I mean those which can stand living outdoors through their existence, from start to finish.  A half-hardy plant is one that requires fostering before being planted outdoors.  We consider asters half-hardy, because they need the extra heat for start which the nasturtium does not need.  You would not think of starting nasturtiums indoors.  But asters and stock really need this sort of a start in life.

“The tall flowers must go toward the back of the garden, for if they were placed in the foreground they would screen the others.  The plants of medium height make up the main part of the garden; while the low plants are in the foreground as borders.

“Perhaps it would be wiser to put some tall perennials or self-sowing annuals in the background, and among the shrubbery.  Then save bed spaces for the annuals.  This will cause less disturbance in the garden than the sowing of annuals in with the perennials.