Small gardens

From Gardening Wiki

Flower Borders for a Small Garden

Flower beds, that exhaust the possibilities of geometrical design and then wander off into all manner of devious paths, are well enough in their place. They are necessary, within decent bounds, to the rigid formality of the partere. And there is a theory, which may or may not be tenable, on the part of park superintendents that such plantings, even when turned into living signs and like freaks, are one of a municipality's horticultural duties to the public.

Unless there is a parterre grouping, the home is better off without flower beds in the accepted sense. Stuck there is no other word that fits in the lawn they are always out of place and very frequently are nothing short of atrocious. Then, in their set gaudiness, they remind one of what Bacon said of lawn designs of colored earth: "You may see as good Sights, many times, in Tarts."

Flowers for the edge of the lawn, but the stretch of sward itself unbroken save by suitable planting of trees or shrubbery, or both, is a good rule that does not have to be qualified other than to admit the inevitable exceptions that make the rule. There are instances, as in Hyde Park, London, of beds in the simplest geometrical forms being placed in the lawn near the edge of it with an effect really beautiful and not out of keeping with the general scheme; but all this is on a large scale.

Again, islands of shrubbery, that are virtually converted into flower beds by a liberal planting of perennials or bedding plants, are to be seen.

For the small home grounds, above all, the border, or series of borders, is infinitely to be preferred in any but very exceptional circumstances. Borders adjust themselves to every line of a place, no matter with what irregularity it is marked; beds rarely do.

Then, too, borders are very much easier in the making, while in the upkeep the labor does not begin to be so much as with a bed that offers any- thing more serious than a right angle. The thought of laboriously cutting a crescent in the lawn, and then planting it, trimming it again and again and keeping the grass edge just right, that always there may be exact symmetry, is enough to drive such an idea out of one's head.