In fact, when the plan is submitted, it will probably be accompanied by a tentative list of the needed plants.  These you can buy either delivered ready for planting, or a somewhat higher price will include this service by men from the nursery.  In the latter case, the nursery usually guarantees that everything supplied will live for a year or be replaced without charge.  Personally, we have found that the nearer home we bought nursery stock, the better were its chances of living and thriving.  There is no adjustment to different climatic conditions and such plants and shrubs are only a very short time out of the soil before they are planted in your grounds either by you or the man sent from the nursery.  Nearly always they put their roots down and continue growing with little or no interruption.

The matters of gardens, flower beds, and borders again depend on the contour of the land and how it can best be related to the house.  Further, unless you are well versed in gardening, it is best to get advice as to the flowers and plants that thrive best in a given spot.  It is discouraging to lay out a rose garden or a modest border of hardy climbers and find you have picked just the wrong place for them to thrive.  It is the same with certain perennials.

Rock gardens are most picturesque and lend themselves to a large variety of hardy and interesting plants.  The most successful are those where nature supplies the framework.  One of the loveliest we ever saw had originally been a pigsty.  Halfway up a hillside two large boulders jutted out and below them a rocky formation descended in shelf-like steps to a level surface.  Ingenious planting and patient care transformed this into a mass of color and bloom that has been admired for miles.  Its owner has gradually expanded it and has even added rocks dug from a neighboring field.  The farmer who supplied them shook his head resignedly.  “Well, I’ve lived in these parts a long time and seen plenty of queer things.  I can understand paying a man to dig out rocks but this is the first time I was ever asked to dump them on good land.”

The formal garden is usually part of the development of the very ambitious country estate.  Such grounds are the result of plans prepared by a practicing landscape architect, engaged on a fee basis as with other architects.  According to the arrangements he will prepare the plans or he will also supervise their execution.  While there are some remarkable formal gardens in America, beautifully designed and kept in perfect condition by skillful gardeners engaged by the year, most homes do not have such sophisticated settings.

Popular indeed is an area of well-kept lawn surrounded by naturalistic plantings of trees, shrubs, and hedges that give privacy and frame the whole.  Add to this borders of flowering plants, annuals and perennials, and from spring to late fall such a spot becomes an outdoor living room.  Here the family spends most of its time.  Real enthusiasts eat many of their meals here.