As my garden falls naturally into various portions, distinct enough from each other to allow of separate treatment, I have found it well to devote one space at a time, sometimes mainly, sometimes entirely, to the flowers of one season of the year.
There is therefore one portion that is a complete little garden of spring flowers. It begins to show some bloom by the end of March, but its proper season is the month of April and three weeks of May.
In many places the spring garden has to give way to the summer garden, a plan that greatly restricts the choice of plants, and necessarily excludes some of the finest flowers of the early year.
My spring garden lies at the end and back of a high wall that shelters the big summer flower border from the north and north-west winds. The line of the wall is continued as a Yew hedge that in time will rise to nearly the same height, about eleven feet. At the far end the Yew hedge returns to the left so as to fence in the spring flowers from the east and to hide some sheds. The space also encloses some beds of Tree Peonies and a plot of grass, roughly circular in shape, about eight yards across, which is nearly surrounded by Oaks, Hollies and Cob-nuts. The plan shows its disposition. It is of no design; the space was accepted with its own conditions, arranged in the simplest way as to paths, and treated very carefully for colour. It really makes as pretty a picture of spring flowers as one could wish to see.
