For 300 years the craft of gardening was mainly concentrated on this type of work as the very extensive walled gardens of the 19th century show; cottage gardening, on the other hand, did not change. But with the ever-growing collection of plants in our gardens a new awareness of the value and beauty of plants came to the fore, mainly through the writings and examples of William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll. The latter is particularly remembered as the arch-exponent of the herbaceous border. She used her herbaceous plants-augmented by annuals and shrubs-to create garden pictures of advanced sophistication, This was all very well when garden staff were easy to obtain, but today, when most garden owners are their own head gardener and garden boy rolled into one, and when the taste and desire for plants has almost exceeded all other aspects of gardening, we have to look again at the values and uses of trees, shrubs and plants in an endeavour to plant them so that they each give of their maximum to make the garden beautiful, easy to maintain and restful and enjoyable to the senses. To this ideal every plant should and can play its part, and it will be found that practically every garden owes its beauty to its mixture of plant form-just as it did in early days but with much more stress on arrangement. Lovely though a true herbaceous border may be during the summer months, it is not perhaps the ideal way in which to use herbaceous plants. They are needed to knit together the single specimens of shrubs and trees-all that most of us are permitted today-by under-planting and grouping to create garden pictures, besides the fact that the herbaceous plants in general flower after the majority of flowering shrubs. They therefore provide floral colour mainly from June to September before the onset of autumn with its additional bonus of leaf-colour and berries from shrubs and trees. The fundamental idea of a garden is a space from which to enjoy the plants. The more trees and shrubs are included the more areas there are for shade-loving plants, an added luxury dealt with elsewhere in these pages (see p. 150). Let us then visualise an open plot of almost any size whose boundaries-walls, fences or hedges-need screening and that one will step from the living room onto a paved area and then onto the lawn. For the herbaceous plant enthusiast this will be a heaven-sent opportunity to indulge in island beds which have proved in the capable hands of Alan Bloom so successful for the growing of the shorter plants. But unless handled very carefully within the scheme island beds can clutter up the one and only space upon which we depend for our serenity. We are all enthusiasts in one way or another and this is what makes each garden of different character and appeal. Perhaps our main aim is to grow prize delphiniums; if so we must first be sure that the site is right, open and sunny and if possible protected from gales. No plant can compete with delphiniums in their majesty and range of colouring.