Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1876 — Laying Out a Small Garden. [ARTICLE]

Laying Out a Small Garden.

“ How shall I arrange my little front yard, of less than thirty- feet square, to make it look the best?” writes a new correspondent. Having given our friend from Connecticut the English plan desired, we will now give a simple plan of our own, and we would like to see them both made, side by side. It is not well to have every little garden an exact copy of its neighbor, for there is beauty in diversity. In gardening it is best not to attempt more than we can accomplish, bat to do everything in the best possible manner. In so small a space the plan should be simple. Much has been written against straight walks, and in consequence there has, for some years, been a mania for curved paths, and many little front yards have been sadly disfigured by a desperate attempt to make a graceful curve in a little walk leading from the street to the front door, and perhaps not more than twenty feet in length. All suck walks should be straight, and the attempt to make them otherwise is ridiculous. With a good, neat and broad walk to the front door; from this a narrower one leading to the rear of the house, you have all the walks necessary, and all that will look well. In a lot only thirty feet in width, the walk Wading to the front door will be, of course, only a tfew feet from one side of the lot, leaving space for a 1 title unbroken tawn about IWenlV by thirty’feet, if the house should stand thirty feet from the sheet. The space on the other side of the walk will be only a narrow border. Have all the space not used for the walk graded nicely, and covered with grass, either by sodding or sowing seed. Seed must be sown in early fall or spring, and sodding should be done at the same seasons. Keep the grass in perfect order by frequent cut-

J?™ P K?^uc n S r K a e < Gr2sr ijt'Cu to BOW« fhw troSf an oral. Thia would look well filled with caladickua and be too expensive, ten cents’ worth of striped ana blotched petunia seed would give plants enough for two such beds, and would be exceedingly showy, and endure all summer. Thanks to a kind Providence, beauty is cheap—almost, and often entirely, without money or price. A few ■ shrubs around the edges of the Httie lawn, perhaps to screen the fence or any other object, some climbers over the front door, like the astrolochia. and a climbing rose at or near the corner of the house farthest from the front dbor, and you have done about all that can be done to beautify so small a space. Instead of the flower-bed in the center of the lawn it would not be a bad plan to substitute a flue, well-filled vase, with a small bed of flowers near each comer, or a few half-moon shaped beds near the fences. Garden work needs a large stock of patience, and we are pleased that it is so; it is an excellent discipline for an irritable temper. Things will not all prove satisfactory for the first season; but we see reason to hope for better things next year, and we have enough success to give us faith in the future. What a grand school for the culture of patience, faith and hope! Then some of our work proves to be in excellent taste, while a portion we dislike, and resolve to chan ire and improve another year. Thus, while we improve our gardens we improve ourselves, and while they get handsomer we get, at least, better. We propose no model, therefore, for any garden, and only give a few suggestions to set people thinking and working—jnat the key-note to get the tune properly started.— Vick's Floral Guide for