No, The Garden, You, and I know that hardy plants, native and
acclimated, may be had in bloom from hepatica time until ice crowns the
last button chrysanthemum and chance pansy, but to have every bed in
continuous bloom all the season is not for us, any more than it is to be
expected that every individual plant in a row should survive the frost
upheavals and thaws of winter.
If a garden is so small that half a dozen each of the ten or twelve
best-known species of hardy herbs will suffice, they may be bought of
one of the many reliable dealers who now offer such things; but if the
place is large and rambling, affording nooks for hardy plants of many
kinds and in large quantities, then a permanent seed bed is a positive
necessity.
This advice is especially for those who are now so rapidly taking up old
farmsteads, bringing light again to the eyes of the window-panes that
have looked out on the world of nature so long that they were growing
dim from human neglect. In these places, where land is reckoned by the
acre, not by the foot, there is no excuse for the lack of seed beds for
both hardy and annual flowers (though these latter belong to another
record), in addition to space for cuttings of shrubs, hardy roses, and
other woody things that may be thus rooted.
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