While the snow is on the ground, you can be deciding on the best place for your garden, and finding out the kind of flowers and vegetables best suited to your soil and locality.

Write to your Representative at Washington, requesting the seeds he may have to give away. Write to two or three prominent seed firms for catalogues, and look over the garden books at your Public Library. Then if you do not quickly find yourself suffering from a violent attack of Garden Fever, you might as well give up, and not attempt to have a garden, for you will be lacking the real love and enthusiasm that count for success.

Did you ever realize that gardens differ as much as people? "No two gardens, no two human faces, were ever quite alike," says one writer, and you want to make yours expressive of yourself. So before taking another step, study your grounds, large and small,—for if you can have only part of a tiny plot, you still have many possibilities of expressing your own ideas and taste.

The garden is for the personal pleasure of the family, so DON'T put it out in front, for the careless passerby. Choose a more secluded spot where, if you wish, you can train a vine to shade your seat when you want to sit down and enjoy the birds, butterflies and flowers.

EASY RULES FOR ARTISTIC PLANTING

Right here is the place to stop and draw a map of your proposed garden, and mark off the spaces for your chosen plants. You might draw half a dozen plans, and then choose the most suitable. Only never forget the simple rules of a famous landscape gardener:—

When you have decided on the location of your garden, coax some one stronger than yourself to dig up the ground thoroughly, and spade in some fertilizer,—preferably farmyard manure. Plants live on the tonic salts they draw out of the soil through their roots, as much as they do on the carbonic acid gas which they take out of the air through their leaves. So have the ground nourishing, and also nicely pulverized and free from sticks and stone, that the little rootlets can easily work their way through and find their needed nutriment.

Never forget that third rule before mentioned,—"Preserve open lawn centers." A beautiful lawn is as satisfying to the eye as flowers, so never spoil one by cutting it up with beds. They can be put along the sides, used for bordering walks, and nestled close to the house.

PLAN FOR SMALL BACK YARD

One of the loveliest gardens I know is at the back end of a city lot, not more than thirty feet square, with a plot of velvety grass in the center. The irregular border surrounding this bit of lawn is a mass of flowers from earliest spring until black frost,—from March until December,—and delights the whole neighborhood. The secret lies in the fact that the owner knows how to plant for succession of bloom. The ground is laid out this way.

If you can have only a single flower bed, however, try to get it in a sunny, protected spot, preferably facing south, where the cold winds of early spring and late fall will do the least damage. Make a list of the flowers that like such conditions,—and most of them do,—and then pick out those you prefer, writing after each name the time that it blooms. Be sure to select some of each of the early spring, late spring, summer, early fall, and late fall, so that you will have flowers to enjoy the whole season through.

SUCCESSION OF BLOOM

For example, you can choose first from the crocus, snowdrop, scilla, the hardy candytuft that rivals the snow for whiteness, and the tiny creeping phlox that will carpet your bed with pink; next, from the daffodil, narcissus and jonquil groups, with the tulips,—all of which must be set out in the fall for bloom in April and May: then the iris in May and June. Sweet alyssum, nasturtiums, corn flowers, Shirley poppies and cosmos (all annuals), you can count on blooming around New York from July to black frost; dahlias from August to black frost, and monthly roses the entire summer,—with a tidal wave in June. (I know, for I have seen them all, over and over again.)

Many of the annuals can be started indoors, or in a glass-covered box outside. Then when the early flowering bulbs have faded, you can turn their green tops under the ground, first to allow the sap to run back into the bulb (the storehouse for next year), and next to decay and fertilize the soil. The annual seedlings can then be placed right on top! You thus avoid bare, ugly spots, and keep your garden lovely.

Dahlias planted out about the first of June will bloom from early fall until cold weather sets in; and certain roses, like the Mrs. John Laing and all of the hybrid teas, will flower nearly as late. In fact, in the famous rose garden of Jackson Park, Chicago, as well as in private grounds around New York, I have seen roses blooming in December.

You hardly need be afraid of crowding, either, if you will be particular to keep out the weeds, and occasionally work into the soil some bone-meal for fertilizer. Water in dry weather. This does not mean top sprinkling, for that is decidedly injurious. When the ground is dry, soak it thoroughly.

A CITY GARDEN

If you live in a city, you may be interested in a garden I have seen, which ran along the side and rear end of a long, narrow lot. The tallest flowers,—dahlias and hollyhocks,—were at the back of the bed, at the extreme end, and although late in flowering, formed a beautiful green background for the rest all summer. The first irregular section was given up to the blues, and—planted with both annual and perennial larkspur, and cornflowers,—kept the dining-table supplied with blossoms to match the old blue china until the frost came.

Frost, by the way, you will find of two kinds,—hoar frost, which the Psalmist so vividly described when he said, "He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes," and which injures only the tenderest flowers; and black frost, which is of intense enough cold to freeze the sap within the plant cells, so that when the sun's heat melts this frozen sap the plant—leaf and stalk—wilts down and turns black. Therefore, both in the early spring and the late fall, you must watch out for Jack, whichever garb he dons, and give your tender plants some nighty covering.

A LITTLE BED FOR A LITTLE GIRL

If you can have only one small bed, however, you can get a lot of pleasure out of it most of the season if you will carefully choose your plants. Pansies set along the outer edge will blossom until mid-summer if you keep them picked and watered every day; and verbenas, which have the same harmonizing shades, you can count on blooming until late in the fall. They would be attractive in either of the following simple designs:

Candytuft for a border, with petunias in the center, is another combination that should blossom from June until frost. Poppies and cornflowers would also last all summer if you would keep out part of the seed and sow a couple of times at intervals of several weeks. The combinations of red and blue is very pretty, too. Sweet alyssum, with red or pink geraniums, would be lovely all season. For an all yellow bed, plant California poppies to bloom early in the border, and African marigolds, or Tom Thumb nasturtiums to bloom in the center from July on late into the fall. With any of the combinations suggested you could gather flowers almost any time you pleased, for they are all profuse bloomers.

WINDOW BOXES

If you are a little city child, and can have only a flower box in a window or along a porch-rail, cheer up! There is still a chance for you to have posies all the long hot days. After having your box filled with good, rich soil on top of a layer of broken crockery or stones,—for drainage, you know,—you can plant running nasturtiums along the edge for a hanging vine. Inside of that plant a row of the blue lobelia, or set in a few pansies already in bloom. Then you would have room for still another row of taller plants,—say pink and white geraniums, with a fern or two. Another pretty box could be made by putting Wandering Jew or "inch plant" along the edge for the drooping vine, then blue ageratum for your edging, with next a row of lovely pink begonias. As it takes a number of weeks for any seeds to grow and come to flower, you might better save your candy pennies and buy a few blooming plants from the spring pedlar. They will gladden your heart while waiting.

All kinds of green add to these little boxes, and all the white flowers soften and help to blend the bright colors. China asters, in white, pink, and lavender, are lovely in a window box, and if started in shallow trays or old pots early in the spring, can be transplanted later. Then when your early flowers have seen their best days, you can remove them, put in your asters, and have beauties all fall.