But the most frequent fault, whether in composition or in colour, is the attempt to crowd too much into the picture; the simpler effect obtained by means of temperate and wise restraint is always the more telling.

CHAPTER XVI

THE FLOWER-BORDER AND PERGOLA

The flower-border-The wall and its occupants-Choisya ternataNandina-Canon Ellacombe's garden-Treatment of colourmasses-Arrangement of plants in the border-Dahlias and Cannas-Covering bare places-The pergola-How madeSuitable climbers-Arbours of trained Planes-Garden houses.

I HAVE a rather large "mixed border of hardy flowers." It is not quite so hopelessly mixed as one generally sees, and the flowers are not all hardy; but as it is a thing everybody rightly expects, and as I have been for a good many years trying to puzzle out its wants and ways, I will try and describe my own and its surroundings.

There is a sandstone wall of pleasant colour at the back, nearly eleven feet high. This wall is an important feature in the garden, as it is the dividing line between the pleasure garden and the working garden; also, it shelters the pleasure garden from the sweeping blasts of wind from the north-west, to which my ground is much exposed, as it is all on a gentle slope, going downward towards the north. At the foot of the wall is a narrow border three feet six inches wide, and then a narrow alley; not a made path, but just a way to go

along for tending the wall shrubs, and for getting at the back of the border. This little alley does not show from the front. Then the main border, fourteen feet wide and two hundred feet long. About threequarters of the way along, a path cuts through the border, and passes by an arched gateway in the wall to the Pæony garden and the working garden beyond. Just here I thought it would be well to mound up the border a little, and plant with groups of Yuccas, so that at all times of the year there should be something to make a handsome full-stop to the sections of the border, and to glorify the doorway. The two extreme ends of the border are treated in the same way with Yuccas on rather lesser mounds, only leaving space beyond them for the entrance to the little alley at the back.

The wall and border face two points to the east of south, or, as a sailor would say, south south-east; halfway between south and south-east. In front of the border runs a path seven feet wide, and where the border stops at the eastern end it still runs on another sixty feet, under the pergola, to the open end of a summer-house. The wall at its western end returns forward, square with its length, and hides out greenhouses, sheds, and garden yard. The path in front of the border passes through an arch into this yard, but there is no view into the yard, as it is blocked by some Yews planted in a quarter-circle.

Though wall-space is always precious, I thought it