‘ ‘ ml!‘ 5 h; FUN-rm: RVs-‘2 a p ,, ,hfi-v, flu “surf": u- .. .\ «W t "a? , 923A gag: , . ‘ Max ‘0... i a i , £3; CON AHSéo‘S #323X ’45? 473?“? fi/ng // <3 fl 1 w (:26‘5172 :‘1’ ‘ 1; 1’ THE 5.4.1115. ALPINE FLOWERS for English Gardens. Second Edition. THE SUB-TROPICAL GARDEN; or, Beauty of Form in the Flower Garden. Second Edition. IIARDY FLOWERS. Description of upwards of 1300 of the most ornamental species, with Directions for their Arrangement, Culture, etc. Fourth and Cheaper Edition. TIIE \VILD GARDEN; or, Our Graves and Gardens made beauti— ful by the Naturalisation of IIardy Exotic I’lants. Illustrated by ALFRED PARsONs. Second Edition. GOD’S ACRE BEAUTIFUL; or, The Cemeteries of the Future. Third Edition. With Illustrations. London: john Murray. New York: Scribner and VVelford. Published in a cheaper form and with additions under the name ~— CREMATION AND URN-BURIAL. Cassell and Co., Limited. TIIE PARKS AND GARDENS OF I’ARIS. Considered in Re- lation to the \Vants of other Cities, and of Public and Private Gardens. Being notes made in Paris Gardens. Illustrated. London: john Murray. GARDEN DESIGN AND ARCHITECTS" GARDENS. Illus- 'trated, to show, hy actual examples from Ilritish Gardens, that clipping and aligning trees to make thetn “ harmonise " with architecture is barbarous, need- less, and inartistic. 1892. John Murray. f0 UA’NA I. S, E TC. THE GARDEN. An Illustrated \Veekly Journal of Gardening in all its branches. Vol. XL. GARDENING ILLUS'I‘RA'I‘l‘ID. For Town and Country. A \\'eel\‘ly Journal for Amateurs and Gardeners. Vol. XIII. FARM AND HOME. A Weekly Illustrated Journal of Agriculture in all its ln'anehcs. Stock, Dairy, 'I'illage, Stable, I’asture, Orchard, Market- Garden. I’oultry, Ilouse. Vol. X. \VOODS AND FORl‘lSTS. A \Yeeltly Illustrated Journal of Forestry, Ornamental Planting, and Estate Management. Vols. 1. and II. 1385. COTTAGE GARDENING. Poultry, llees, Allotments, Food, Ilouse, \Vindow and Town Gardens. 1892. THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN STYLE, POSITION, & ARRANGEMENT FOLLOWED IIY A DESCRIPTION OF ALL THE BEST PLANTS FOR IT THEIR CULTURE AND ARRANGEMENT IIY \Y. ROBINSON, F.L.S. [L 1, US T/CA TED IV] T11 -1131 1VY E;VC lx’I-I VIA/’05 THIRD EDITION LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1893 PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION HITHERTO I have mostly dealt with the flower garden in relation to rock—gardens, plants of fine form, those we may grow without and the many beautiful things included among the hardy flowers of Northern countries. A book on ) care in the “wild garden,’ the convenient plan of a Dictionary, embracing all the plants, hardy and half-hardy, in our British flower gardens, seemed likely to best meet the wants of the time. It is illustrated, with a view to show the beauty of many of the plants, and in the first part to help design. The aim of the book is to make the flower garden a reflex, so to say, of the world of beautiful plant-life, instead of the formal thing it has long been. Few know the many flowers worth a place in our open-air gardens, and without such knowledge, progress is not easy. It is useless to discuss arrangement if the beauty of the flowers is sealed to us. No stereotyped garden of half-a-dozen kinds of plants will satisfy any one who knows that not “ six,” but hundreds of beautiful aspects of vegetation are possible in a garden in spring, summer, and autumn. At present the rule is no artistic arrangement, no bold good grouping, no garden pictures, no variety, repetitions of ugly patterns. The choke-muddle shrubbery, in which the shrubs kill each other, shows betimes a few ill—grown plants and has wide patches of bare earth in summer, over which pretty green things might crowd. Yet the smallest garden may be a picture, and a pretty one. Not only may we easily have much more variety in any one garden—and that of the highest quality, but if men would give up mere imitation, we should be charmed with the contrasts between gardens. Every district should have flower gardens Characteristic of itself, and adapted to its soil, climate, and position. ‘1‘ Vl TILE ENGLISH" FLOW/ER GARDEN Even small suburban gardens might refresh us with their variety. In the larger gardens opportunities are great—and yet they are stereotyped at the season when they ought to be full of delightful change. In the compilation of this 7716 Garden has been taken specially written where it was the second part of the work thought necessary. book the storehouse of information in advantage of, but articles have been In preparation of valuable aid has been given by Mr. Goldring, late superintendent of the hardy—plant department of the Royal Gardens at Kew. selection of the illustrations, and engraved many of them. Mr. II. Hyde gave useful aid in the The following are the names of the other writers whose contributions are embodied in initials :— J. Allen J. Atkins l’. Barr J. Iiirkenhead 'l‘. C. Boston J. Britten \V. Brockbank If. \V. Burbidge Latiiner Clarke E. T. Cook J. Cornhill Rev. lIarpur Crewe. A. Dean R. Dean I). Dewar Rev. C. \\'olley Dod Rev. ll. ll. Dombrain J. Douglas J. Dundas ; Rev. Canon ICllacomler H. J. lilwes l ll. Iiwbank \V. Falconer l). T. [fish Dr. M. Foster l l’. Neill [’raser (). I’roelml \V. Goldring l’. (irieve J. (iroom \V. IC, (iumhleton T. Hatfield \\'. B. llemsley I. Anderson—l lenry T. ll. Archenllind IC. Hohday Rev. 1“. I). llorner Miss l". llope C. M. llovey Ii. Jackson Miss (i. Jekyll Miss R. Kingsley A. liingsinill Max l.ei<‘htlin l‘:. (i. ludel‘ R. l. Lynch J. M‘Nal) R. Marnock (i. .\la\v J. (i. Nelson the book, and frequently marked by their C. Nicholson J. C. Niven Miss C. M. Owen A. I’erry J. T. I’oe R. Potter A. Rawson The Very Rev. The Dean of Rochester A. Salter C. \V. Shaw J. Sheppard J. Simpson J. Smith T. Spanswick J. Stevens Rev. Canon Swavne \\'. 'l‘hompson \V. 1‘. Thomson Rev. 1“. Tyinons \\'. \\'ilds1nith T. \\'illiams (l. l“. \\'ilson J. \\'ood 1C. II. \\'oodall The book consists of two parts: First, an introduction, dealing with the question of design the aim being to make each place at various seasons and in every available situation an epitome of the great flower garden of the world itself. the garden the lifeless formality of wall-paper or carpet. The Usual plan is to repeat in How to PREFACE vii destroy this conventionality is shown, and that, too, not by dimin- ishing the number of flowers, but, on the contrary, by much increas- ing them. The second part shows the many beautiful families of plants which grow in the open air in Britain, with their culture and the positions suited for each—a point hitherto little attended to in books. The illustrations may well suggest the number of beautiful types of plant—life shut out from our gardens by the few plants used to perpetrate the crudities of “bedding out.” During the past dozen years some gardens have been much enriched; and even new aspects of garden vegetation have appeared, as, for instance, the fine Japanese and North American lilies. But gardens are still often poor in variety of flower. There is much more in flower—gardening than is usually shown. It is an art that in all stages of life might afford us infinite pleasure. But we can only know a few of its charms without a complete change in the narrow way in which it is generally practised. W. R. 302‘]; A727. 1 883. SECOND EDITION IN this Second Edition many changes have been made. It would be better if any one who wrote a book with a useful aim were com- pelled by law to keep to it and mend it all his life, but in that case I should want five years to see many beautiful things in their own homes in many parts of the Northern and temperate world, from California to Siberia. Under present circumstances, I do my best, and hope I may be able, some day, to make the “English Flower Garden ” more worthy of the theme. W. R. GRAYE'IYE MANOR, 25t/z FM. 1889. viii THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN THIRD EDITION IN this Edition we have broken up the old plates and taken the opportunity of bringing into the book many of the flowering shrubs and flowering trees omitted in the First Edition, also many of the trees which, like the Evergreen Oak and Holly, have often a very important place near the flower garden or in its surroundings. The need of keeping the book to the handbook form precludes any considerable enlargement. I shall, however, never give up the hope of making it better, and shall be thankful to any reader who lets me know of omissions, defects, or may suggest an improve— ment. I regret the book has been long out of print, and hope to prevent this in future. W. R. CONTENTS C H A P T E R I PAGE DESIGN AND POSITION . . . . . . . . I Terraced Gardens . . . . . . . . . 4 A few VV’ords with an Architect . . . . . . . 9 Some English Flower Gardens . . . . . l . 19. Bare Flower Gardens . . . . . . . . 19 English Cottage Gardens . . . . . . . . 22 Greenlands 22 Goodwood . . . . . . . . . 23 Pendell Court . . . . . . . . . 25 Ixhiama . . . . . . . . . 27 Garden at VV ey bridge . . . . . . . . 31 Sheen Cottage . . . . . . . . . 33 Drummond Castle. . . . . . . 34 Steps and Terrace in the Old Park, Axminster . . . . . 36 V egetable Sculpture 38 C H A P T E R II THE WILD GARDEN, OR THE NATURALISATION OF HARDY EXOTIC FLOWERS . 4o VV'ild Gardening in Meadow Grass . . . . . . 52 Principal Families of Plants for the Wild Garden . . . . . 55 C H A P T E R III BORDERS, BEDS, AND GROUPS OF HARDY FLOWERS . . . . _ 57 Labour and Care . . . . . . . . . 59 The True VV'ay . . . . . . . . _ 59 F lower Borders . . . . 63 ‘ The Flower Border against a VV all . 65 The Flow er Border 1n the Fruit or Kitchen Garden ' . . . . 66 The Mixed Border . ' 68 VIr. Frank Vliles on the Flower Border . . . . . . 70 76 Evergreen Border s x THE ENGLISH FLOW/ER GARDEN CHAPTER IV PAGE THE SPECIAL CULTURE OF HARDY F10\\ ERs—THE I\ESERVE AND CU1- FLO“ ER GARDENS . 77 \\ hat to grow in the Resene Garden 79 Flowers for the B1eakfast Table . . . . . . . 82 Gardens of One Flower . . . . . . . o A Primrose Garden . . . . 1 . 83 Hardy Plants for Reserve Garden and for Cuttinur F'lov1crs . . . 85 CHAPTER V IIARI)Y BULns . . . . . . . . . 87 Bulbs 111 Large Beds 89 Bulbs 1n the Shrubbery . . . 90 Some Bulbous and like Plants for British Flower Gardens 91 CHAPTER VI ALPINE AND ROCK GARDENs . 92 Position for the Rock-Garden 95 Soil . 98 Alpine Plants in Groups 102 Plants for Rock—Gardens 105 CHAPTER VII FLOWERING 511111115 AND TREEs . . . . . 106 Principal Families of Flowering Trees and Shrubs hardy in English Gardens 111 CHAPTER VIII ANNUAL AND 1%11-1NNIAL PLAN'rs 11111 THE FLOWER GARDEN 115 llalf—hardy Plants treated as Annuals . . . . . 11; Some of the more important Families of Annual and Biennial Flowers. including half-hardy Bedding Plants, for the Flower Garden 118 e H A M 1: R 1x \VA'rERsimc, S'l‘l{l£.-\1\ll.li'l‘, Boa-(kaDrzx‘ AND ll.\RD\' FERNs 1:0 The llogllarden 1:; llardy Ferns CONTENTS xi CHAPTER X PAGE BEAUTY OF FORM IN THE FLOWER GARDEN . . . . . . 133 \ meats in Groups . . . . . . . . I41 Principal Families of Plants with fine Foliage or Form, for use in British Gardens 145 CHAPTER XI CLIMBERS . . . . . . . . . . 147 A Pergola . . . . . . . . . . 150 Climbing Roses 011 Trees . . . I5 3 Some Families of Hardy Climbing Plants, including also VVall- Plants . . 154 CHAPTER XII SPRING FLO“ ERS . . . . . . 156 Some Spring and early Summer Flowers hardy in English Gardens . . I 58 CHAPTER X111 At TL‘MN FLO“ ERS . 160 Some of the Families of hardy and half- hardy Plants blooming in London District 1n September and October . . . . . . I61 Staruorts . . . . . . . 161 New Aspect of Beauty for the Autumnal Garden . . . . 1 162 The Lilac Starw ort . . . . . . . . 164 The Italian Starwort . . . . . . . . 164 The Blue Starwort . . . . . . . . 164 The New England Starwort . . . . . . . 164 The\ ew Y ork Star“ ort . . . . . . . . 165 The Pink Starwort . . 1 . . , 1 . 165 The Spreading Starwort . . . . . 1 . . 165 The Daisy Starwort . . . . . . . . 165 CHAPTER XIV SUMMER-BEDDING GARDENING . . . . . 1 . 166 Soil and Cultivation . . . . . . . . I68 Coloured Foliage . . . . . . . . . I70 Bedding and fine-Ieaved Plants . . . . . . . I7I \ ases . . . . . . . . . I 72 Sub- -tropical Bedding . . . . . . . . 173 Summer and \\ 1nter Bedding . . . . . . . 174 Shrubs for \V inter Bedding . . . . . I75 Principal Families of Plants used for Bedding— —out . . . . I76 Xil THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN CHAPTER XV PAGE ROSERIEs, PAST AND PRESENT . . . . . . . 178 Places for Roses . . . . . . . . . 179 Thick Planting . . . . . . . . . 181 Pruning and large Bushes of Roses . . . . . . 181 Roses on Lawns . . . . . . . . . 184 Aspects for Roses . . . . . . . . , 186 Soil for Roses . . . . . . . . , 186 Roses on Palings . . . . . . . . _ 188 \Vall Roses . . . . . . . . . 188 List of some of the best Garden Roses . . . . , , 190 CHAPTER XVI COLOUR IN THE FLOWER GARDEN . . . . . , _ 192 llarmony rather than Contrast . . . . . , , 193 Breadth of Mass and Intergrouping . . . . . _ 193 \Varm Colours . . . . . . . . . 194 Purple and Lilac . . ' . . . . . . . 194 \Vhite Flowers . . . . . . . . _ 194 Blue Flowers . . . . . . . . . 194 A Progression of Colour . . . . . . . , 194 Silvery-leaved Plants . . . r _ , _ . 194 In Sunny Places . . . . . . . . . 194 ;\ Shady Border . i . . . . . . . 194 Bedded-out Plants . . , . . . . . 195 Contrasts—110w to be used . , . . , . . 195 Climbers on \\'alls . . . . . . . . 195 Colour in Bedding-out . . . . . . . . 195 CHAPTER XVII SOME Souncrcs or‘ WAs’rE . . . A . . . . 107 Grass . . . . . . . . . . 198 \Vftllis . . . . i . i . . . 198 (llass . . . . . . . . . . 199 \\'atering . . . . . . . . . . 199 Fancy Labels . . . . . . . , 200 For all Half-hardy Beddinlbr Plants . . . . . . 201 Fancy lCdgings . . . . . . . . . :01 Stucco and Stone Waste . . . . . . . 20.: Patented Articles l . . . . . . . . 203 Rabbits . . i . . . . . . . 20‘ J LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Example of the Natural Style. Thrumpington Hall, Derby . The Two Styles : the Formal. Terraces to Sussex House Old Place, Lindfield. A simple Lawn Garden for Hardy Flowers Arundel. Example of Ground requiring Terracing . VVatermouth Castle, Devon. On Ground where Terracing is essential Gardens at Berkeley Castle, with old Terrace Walls VVakehurst. Elizabethan House on level Ground without Terraces Sussex House on gently-sloping Ground. Terracing not necessary A Cottage Garden at Maltingley, near VVinchfield, Hants . . . A Thames~side Garden (Greenlands), with wide sloping Lawn and Flower Beds to right and left. Visible from the Lawn seen through the Trees . Goodwood Park front, with Cedars and Oaks. Example of Grassy Foreground to House. From :1 Sketch by Alfred Parsons, 6th May 1880 . . View of Lawn Garden at Pendell Court : Elizabethan. Flowers in simple Beds near House . . . . . . . Cottage Garden and Law,n with Flowers mostly on the outer Fringes of Lawn, in Borders, and around Beds of Peat Shrubs. Gilbert White’ 5 Garden at Selborne, sketched by A. Parsons in 1880 A Terraced Garden with Picturesque Planting. Rhianva, Anglesey. V 1ew of Flower Garden at Madresfield Court . View in Picturesque Heath. Garden at VVeybridge . . Upper Terrace at Drummond Castle, Crieff, Perthshire. Ground being steep, Terraces are necessary . . . . . Steps and Terrace, “The Old Park,” Axminster. Example of Terrace Garden not stifily planted. From a Photograph by Miss Dryden, Canons Ashby, North— amptonshire Star of Bethlehem in Grass . Group of VIullein, near Scotch Firs, in Surrey Heath. A Beautiful Accident. A Colony of Sweet Cicely 1n Shrubbery, with White Harebells Columbines and Geraniums 1n Meadow Grass . Poet’s Narcissus and large Rockfoils in Open Shrubbery . . . Giant Cow Parsnip. Type of Great Siberian Herbaceous Vegetation. Chiefly fitted for the VV’ild Garden Night Effect of EV ening Primrose 1n the VV ild Garden . . V 1er in Moat Mead, Gravetye Manor, with Poet’s Narcissus in Bloom in early Summer 1891, planted five years. From a sketch by W. E. Norton PAGE 24 25 26 29 3o 32 37 4o 42 46 48 49 50 53 c I XIV THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN Tailpiece Headpiece Japanese VVindflower A Mixed Border of Hardy Flowe1s Group of Meadow Sweets . . A well- covered Border of Hardy Flowers. Campden, Glos. Hardy Bo1der Flowers against House, with Climbers behind . . Portion of Group of pink Japan Anemone in the Garden at Mirehouse, Keswick A Fern Border with Flowers here and there Flowers at the Window without intervening \Valk Evergreen Hardy Flowers in \Vaste Corner Tailpiece Headpiece Portion of Bed of \\ hite T1umpet Lily (Lilium longiflorum) Christmas Ixoses 1n Bed 111 lxese1ve Garden Mass of Giant Indian Lily in a Surrey Garden A Primrose Garden in small Clearing in \Vood in Surrey Tailpiece Lilies coming through Carpet oi \Vhite Arabis Colony of Summer Snowflake, on Margin of Shrubbely (Longleat) Tulip Garden at the Castle, Ding“ all . Tailpiece Headpiece . Alpine Flowers at Home Passage in Rock-Garden Erinus alpinus on Stone Steps Steps in a Garden at Coneyhurst . . . Shady Side of Wall of Terrace covered with Rockfoil and Ferns A Rock-Garden at \Vindermere . . . Cheddar Pink, Saxifrage, and Ferns, on Cottage Wall at Mells lIouseleeks, etc., at Lamport lIall . . Alpine Garden on level Ground with Gentianella in large Group (figure to give scale) lailpiece . . . Bed of the l’lumed llyhanwea at Shor',tl1an1 lxent Rhododendron G ardeu at l>idston, C 11eshi1e . . The \\ hite Indian Azalea (A. indica), 111 a \Vood at C oolhuist Sussex Tailpiece . . . . . . . . Bed of “China Asters ’ : showing Effect of well-grown annual Plants in Garden. Engraved from a Photograph Double lIollyhock . . . . . . . . \Vhite Foxglove. lCngraved from :1 Photograph by ll. llyde of a Self-sown Plant in Shruhbery at Gravetye Manor Sweet Sultan Tailpiece . . Streamlet in a Devonshire Garden . . Solomon‘s Seal and llerb l’aris, in Copse by Streamlet llardy \Vater-Lilies Colony of Iris, by Brook-side PAGE .— N I.) .— h) 244 LIST OF ILL USTRA TIONS XV PAGE Cyperus longus . 124 Mocassin—flower in Rocky Bog. 126 A Bog-Garden . 128 Royal Fern (Osmunda regalis) 129 Rock Fernery at Danesbury 131 Tailpiece . . . . . . . . I 32 Sheltered Dell, with Tree Ferns and Stov e Plants placed out for the Summer (battersea) I 33 Hardy Palm 1n the open air in England 134 Pampas Grass in a Sussex Garden (Chichester) 136 The New Zealand Reed (Arundo conspicua) I37 \Iusa Ensete 1n the open Garden at Park Place, Henley- on Thames I 38 Bed of Fine-leax ed Plants 1n Hyde Park. From a sketch by H. G. Moon 139 Yucca gloriOsa, Salisbury . . . . 140 Group of House Plants placed out for Summer. Harrow Lodge, Dorking 141 American Aloe. Example of Greenhouse Plants set in open air in Summer. Engraved from a Photograph taken in Knightwick Rectory Garden, Worcestershire I42 Fine-leaved Sub—tropical Plants, with Ivy and Climbers, in the Gardens of the Princess Kotschoubey, at Nice . 144 Group of Solomon’s Seal at foot of wall 146 Clematis over Porch . 147 Climbers on the Vicarage, Odiham, Hants . 149 Pergola, with \Vhite Lilies, in Mrs. Eden’s Garden at Venice . . I 51 N ewly—formed Pergola at Munstead, with brick pillars and oak timbers 152 Mexican Orange-flower (Choisya) I 54 \Yistaria on Cottage in Surrey . I 5 5 Creeping Forget-me-not I 56 The Spring Snowflake . 159 Autumn Crocus in the Flower Garden . 160 A Border of Michaelmas Daisies in a Surrey Garden . 162 Bed of Hardy and Half-hardy Plants . 167 “ Carpet Bed. 168 Do. do. . . . . . . 169 Summer Bedding, with occasional use of Fine- foliaged Plants 170 Bed of Succulents and Coloured- leaned Plants . 171 Stone Basket of Flowers and Fine- Leav ed Plants in the Garden at Heckfield Place . 172 Part of Bed of “ Begonias” at Canons Ashly . I74 Tailpiece . . I 7 7 Climbing Rose (Rosa alba) on Cottage Porch, Surrey 179 \\ hite Climbing Rose on old Catalpa Tree 182 Tea Rose, Marie van Houtte 185 Roses on Palings . . . . 187 Tea Rose, “ Rubens,” in the Garden of )Ialwood, Hampshire 189 Tea Rose, Jean Ducher 191 Tailpiece . . . . . . . 196 Cast- -1ron Labels , the simplest, neatest, and best Form for Shrubs, bold Herbaceous Plants, and for all Cases where the Label has to be fixed 1n the Ground . 200 The simplest and best Label for Trees 201 Position for Tree Label 201 xvi THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN Tailpiece Aetena. micropliylla Acanthus Achillen Eupatorium (Caspian l\Iilf0il) Aconitum Napellus (Monkshood) Adiantum pedatum (The Bird’s-foot Maiden-hair) Adonis vernalis \Vhite Agapanthus (Aflican Lily) Ailantus with Cannas Aliebia quinata Allium Moly (Yellow Allium). Alstiomeria (Pe1uvian Lily) Altha‘a rosea (Double-flowered IIollyhock) Single llollyhock Amarantus (Prince’s Feather) Flowers of Amygdalus nana ,, Andromeda . . ,, And1osace lanuginosa (Himalayan Androsace) Androsace foliosa . . Anemone blanda (Blue U reek \Vindfiower) ,, coronaria (double-flowered) . Single l’oppy Anemones . Anemone fulgens ll.-pl. (Scarlet \Vindtlower) \Vhite Japan Anemone in Shrubbery Anemone Sylvestris (Snowdrop Anemone) Anomatbeca eruenta . . Antirrliinum (Hnapdragon, \Yhite Swan) Cape Pond-flower . . Aquilegia californica (Californian Columbine) Flower of Rocky Mountain Columbine. Siberian Columbine \Vhite Columbine Aralia spinosa (Angelica Tree) ,, Sieboldi . . . . l’lowers of Arbutus l'nedo (Strawberry Tree) . Aretotis arboreseem~ . . Arenaria baleariea (Balearic Handwort) Flower of Argemone mexicana . Aristoloehia Siplio (Dutchman's l‘ipe) . Armeria cephalotes (Large-flowered Thrift) Arum crinitum (Dragon's Mouth) Arundo Donax (Great Reed) Asperula odorata (\Voodrutl) Asphodelus 11111105115 (Asphodel) . . -\splenium australasicum (Australian Bird’s-nest Fern) \steI elemlus (I ilae Stammt) . . ., elieoides (Ileatb-leared htarnort) ,, 'l‘l1on1psoni PAGE 204 206 207 208 209 211 212 214 216 217 218 216 221 222 225 227 N N C73 N N to (n N N O \O N Lu N 4; N N (.0 Ln (.1) 03 94 93 U1 0 N \1 LIST OF ILL USTRA TIOIVS xvii Astilbe rivularis (Goat’s-beard) Astrantia major Athyrium Filix- foemina (Lady Fern) Flo“ ers of Azalea mollis . Bseria chry sostoma Spray of Bambusa NIazelli and B. Metake The Metake Bamboo Bartonia aurea . Tuberous Begonia Double Daisy . . Benthamia fragifera, Elm House, Guernsey Evergreen Barberry Blumenbachia coronata The Plume Poppy (Bocconia cordata) Swan River Daisy Brevoortia' (Satin-flower) Brugmansia Knighti in the Flower Garden Datura suaveolens, Coshain, Hants Bulbocodium . Calandrinia oppositifolia Arum Lily (Calla zethiopica) Dwarf Crown China Aster Calochortus flavus Calopogon pulchellus Allspice Tree (Calycanthus) . Campanula persicifolia alba (Peach-leaved Bell-flower) Campanula pyramidalis Campanula rotundifolia. . . Indian Shot (Canna indica), flowers and leaves Cannabis sativa (Hemp Plant) . Carpenteria califomica in at Sussex Garden Catananche coerulea . Celsia cretica (Cretan .NIullein) . Centaurea babylonica . ,, montana (Mountain Knapweed) Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber) Cephalaria procera . Cherry Flowers (Cerasus NVatereri) Chameerops Fortunei in a Surrey Garden Snow Glory (Chionodoxa) . . Choisya temata (Mexican Orange-flower) in Devon Garden Chrysanthemum tricolor ,, frutescens (Paris Daisy) ,, “ Cottage Pink ” Rock Rose (Cistus florentinus) . A \Vild Clematis Clematis patens , , montana on Yew PAGE ‘ 263 264 266 268 270 270 272 273 274 275 276 277 279 280 281 282 285 286 287 291 295 297 298 300 300 306 307 308 310 311 312 313 3‘5 316 317 319 319 320 323 326 327 328 328 330 332 334 335 336 xviii TIJE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN Clematis Jackmani Flowers of Clematis erecta Clematis, Lady Caroline Nevill Colchicum l’arkinsoni . . Convallaria majalis (I ily of the Valley) Conv olvulus sylvaticus. Cordyline aust111lis, Bosakan Cornwall Coreopsis tinctoria (Tickseed) . Yellow Fumitory (Corydalis lutea) on wall May, Hawthorn Crocus halansre ,, l)ifl0rus pusillus. ,, etruscus. ., leucorhynchus ,, reticulatus ,, Imperati ,, nudiflorus Gourds in a Surrey Garden Head of Cycas revoluta . - European Cyclamen, Sowhread (C. europ1eu111) Mocassin-flower (Cypripcdium speetahilc) Dahlia imperialis Garland llo11er (Daphne Cneorinn) Dasy 1111011 aerot1iel1un1 . Delphinium Deutzia . . . . Diantlius alpinus (Alpine l’ink) Carnation lxedhracs l ieotee Dianthus deltoides (Maiden l‘ inl\l Dianthus nelgeetus (Glacier Pink) Dictamnus fraxinella Dimorphanthus 111andscl1uricus . Foliage of 'l‘easel Doronicum (Leopard‘s Bane) Drosera tiliformis . Dryas octopetala (Mountain Avens) Eehinops rutllenicus (Globe Thistle) lCdraianthus l‘un1ilio Epigaea repens (Mayflower) Ftplisetum 'l‘elmateia (Giant IIorsc-taill l' rodium pet1 11‘11111 . 1C1petion reniforme (Ne11 llolland \ ioletl Er)ngiun1 alpinum (Sea llolly) liulalia japonica . linonymus latifolius (fruiting l1ranel1) lirumtoriu1n purpureum ('l‘horough-wort) Franeoa ramosa (Maiden‘s Wreath) 357 358 360 362 364 366 370 7 1 m o; w \I \1 \1 m U1 Lu (a) U) (u LIST OF ILL USTRA TIONS xix PAGE White Fritillary 420 Fuchsia pumila 423 Plantain Lily (Funkia Sieboldi) 424 Gaillardia 425 Snowdrop 426 Garrya elliptica 431 Genista tinctoria 433 Gentiana verna 434 Gladiolus The Bride . 437 Hybrid Gladiolus (Lemoine‘s) 438 Gunnera scabra . . 440 Large leaV ed Ixy, one of many fine forms . 444 Ixy 1n \\ reaths and Sheets on Ixailings of Suburban Gardens . 445 Pyramid of Large leav ed I\ y, 7 ft. high 446 Sun Rose 011 Rocks (Cheddar) 447 Double Perennial Sunflower . 449 Heliotrope 45 I Christmas Rose 452 Helleborus \ iridis 4 5 3 Hemerocallis fulva (Day Lily.) 454 Houstonia ccerulea 458 Hyacinth 460 The Plumed Hydrangea 462 Iberis gibraltarica 465 Holly Hedge at Bagshot 467 Inula glandulosa 469 Ionopsidium acaule 470 Iris fcetidissima (Gladwin) 473 ,, Kzempferi (Japanese Iris) 473 ,, pallida 474 ,, persica 475 ,, reticulata 476 ,, susiana 478 Spanish Iris (I. Xiphium) 479 Jasminum nudiflorum . 482 Juniperus recurva at Castlewellan 483 ,, Sabina (the Savin) 485 Jew’s Mallow (Kerria japonica) 486 Kniphofia grandis 488 Laurus nobilis (Sweet Bay) 492 Leontopodium alpinum (Edelweiss) 494 Libertia formosa 497 Lilium auratum 499 ,, candidum (VS. bite or Madonna Lily) 501 ,, giganteum 502 ,, Humboldti 503 \Vhite Martagon Lilies 504 Lilium monadelphum, var. Szovitzianum 505 XX THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN Lilium longiflorum var. (White Trumpet Lily) ,, tigrinum (Tiger Lilies amongst Grass) . Lobelia fulgens (Cardinal Flower) Lonicera Periclymenum (Honeysuckle) Lupinus arboreus (Tree Lupine) . The Yulan (Magnolia conspicua) at Gunnersbury House Magnolia purpurea Menziesia polifolia alba . Mertensia virginiea (Virginian COWSlip) Michauxia campanuloides Molopospermum cicutarium Mulgetlium l’lumieri (Blue Thistle) Musa Ensete Myosotis alpestris . Myrrhis odorato (Sweet Cicely) Myrtle . Narcissus Ilorsfieldi ,, calathinus . . ,, Bulbocodium (IIoop Petticoat Narcissus) ,, jonquilla ,, poeticus Group of Daffodils Nicotiana aftinis Nigella (lamascena (linothera riparia Olearia llaasti . Omphalorles Lueilim ()nosma taurieum (Golden Drop) ()rehis foliosa (Madeira ()rehis) Arabian Star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum aral>icum) Uzothamuus rosniarinitolius Double l’aeonies in Grass l’monia Moutan (Tree l’;e0ny) . \Vhlte l’oppies . . . Opium Poppies (l'apaver somnifl‘rum) l’arnassia palustris ((lrass of Parnassus) l’assitlora Constance l‘llliot l’elargouiunl grown under a Veramlah . ,, “ l’retty l’olly ‘” l’eriploca gra'ea l’hilarlelphus grandillorus \Vhite llerlnu‘eous l‘hlox l’hysalis Alltekengi (Winter Cherry) l’hyteunia eomosuin l’latystenion californicus l’lumhago capensis . . l’olygonatum nulltillorutn (Solomon's Seal) [’0] 'gonuin euspitlatuni (japan Knotweerl) LIST OF ILLUSTRA TIONS xxi Polygonum sachalinense ,, 'accinifolium Primula capitata . farinosa (Bird’s eye Primrose) , , rosea . , , Sieboldi , , vulgaris Primrose Munstead early white “ Bunch ” Primroses Prunus sinensis fl. -pl. Pterocephalus Parnassi Puschkinia scilloides Pyrethrum uliginosum . Pear Blossom . Shoot and Acorns of Evergreen Oak Ramondia pyrenaica . . . . Ranunculus aconitifolins fl.-pl. (Fair Maids of France) Rheum officinale Earl) Rhododendron In Bloom Rhododendron nobleanum . Tree Rhododendron at Castlewellan, County Down lxhus Cotinus (Venetian Sumach) Rodgersia podophylla Romneya Coulteri Triomphe de Rennes Rose, Celeste . Roses ma Surrey Garden Buds of Tea Ixose Anna Olivier Tea Rose, Edith Gifford ,, Madame Lambard Baroness Rothschild Rose, Cheshunt Hybrid Climbing Rose, Aimee Vibert Rose Harrisoni Rosa spinosissima Salpiglossis sinuata Saxifraga Burseriana ,, cordifolia ,, longifolia Group of Silvery Rockfoils Saxifraga \Vallacei ,, sarmentosa Irish Rockfoil Scabiosa caucasica Scilla campanulata . ,, nutans(IfluebeH). . . H The Japanese Stonecrop (Sedum spectabile) Cobweb Houseleek PAGE 593 594 599 600 . 603 604 606 607 608 610 611 612 613 614 616 618 619 621 623 624 625 629 632 633 635 637 638 641 642 643 645 647 648 650 654 661 665 667 669 670 671 672 673 674 677 678 681 684 xxii THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN Senecio balbisianus . Sibthorpia europzea variegata (Moneywort) Skimmia fragrans Smilacina bifolia Smilax aspera (Prickly Ivy) Spirzea Aruncus ,, aritefolia . ,, Filipendula (Dropwort) . Syringa Bretschneideri . The Irish Yew. One of the forms of the Cominon V ew Thalictrum aquilegifolium Tigridia Pavonia . Trillium grandiflorum (VV’ood Lily) Trollius euiopzeus (Mountain Globe- flower) Tropzeolum polyphyllum . Tropaeolum speciosum (Flame Nasturtium) Late Dutch Tulips Tunica Saxifraga Tussilago Farfara \aiiegata (V ariegated Coltsfoot) Vallota purpulea (Scarborough Lily) Verbascum nigrum var. album . Verbascum phoeniceum Shrubby Speedwell Viola pedata (Bird’s-foot Violet) Tufted Pansy, Mrs. Gray VVeigela grandiflora VVistaria (Glycine) sinensis VVoodwardia radicans . Yucca gloriosa (Adam’s Needle) Zea caragua 739 742 744 745 747 749 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN CHAPTER I DESIGN AND POSITION ONE aim of this book is to uproot the idea that a flower garden is necessarily of set pattern—usually geometrical—placed on one side of the house. The wants of flowers can be best met, and their varied loveliness fully shown, only in a variety of positions, and the first thing to do is to consider the error of arraying all our flowers in one spot under exactly the same conditions! Such arrangements can never give us a tithe of the beauty of which our gardens are capable. That a flower garden should occupy one spot, and all the flowers be therein shown, is the old and general rule. We must take no notice of it if our gardens are to be varied and beautiful with the flowers of all seasons. The settled way has been to regard one spot with the same soil and aspect—with every condition alike, in fact—as the only home for open-air flowers. Yet in the same place, or near, there may be many different positions, each favourable to a different type of flower life. Things said to be “matters of taste,” like flower gardening, are really matters of law. The shades are so fine, the swift changes so beautiful, the creatures of wood, grass, and air so many and so fair, as they pass, that we may well forget for a moment that life is law. For all that concerns our lives there are laws which will guide us if we seek for them. The laws here meant are Nature’s laws—not merely landmarks set out by man for his convenience. Only they are not laws that bind with weary fetters, but as infinite in delight- ful Change as the restless clouds on the hills. No one need fear their tyranny, for in them is perfect liberty and all the sweet wander- ings the earth mother has for her children. We shall never settle the most trifling question by the stupid saying that it is “a matter of taste." If the reader will come with me through these early chapters .. r f 13 2 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEA" I may convince him that flower gardening is “a matter of reason." I do not want him to think as I do without considering the matter for himself. The laws of all true art can only be based on the eternal laws of Nature. There are many dissertations on the several styles of laying out gardens: the authors go even to China and to Mexico for illustrations. The first thing every writer on this subject does is to puzzle himself and his readers with words about “styles.” But when all is read, what is the result to anybody who looks from words to things? That there are two styles: the one strait- laced, mechanical, with much wall and stone, with water-squirts, plaster-work, and sculpture of the poorest sort ; the other natural“ in most cases accepting the ground lines of the earth herself as the best, and getting plant beauty from its true source—with the flowers and trees arranged in picturesque ways. Mr. Ruskin tells us that \Ve are forced, for the sake of accumulating our power and knowledge, to live in cities; but such advantage as we have in association with each other is in great part counterbalanced by our loss of fellowship with Nature. \Ve cannot all have gardens now, nor our pleasant fields to meditate in at eventide. Then the function of our architecture is, as far as may be, to replace these ; to tell us about Nature ; to possess us with memories of her quietness; to be solemn and full of tenderness like her, and rich in portraitures of her; full of delicate imagery of the flowers we can no more gather, and 0f the living creatures now far away from us in their own solitude. \Vhat, then, are we to think of those who carry the dead lines of the builder into the garden, which, above every other artificial creation, should give us the sweetest “fellowship with Nature”? A flower garden should not be a stone yard. There are positions, it is true, where stonework may be necessary. The most beautiful terrace gardens are those built where the nature of the ground requires them, but the natural disposition of even monotonous ground is pre- ferable to the most elaborate geometrical arrangement. Let us, then, use as few carpet patterns and as little stonework as possible, and have our gardens full of life and change, and of such beauty as is nowhere to be found in deadly formalism. \Ve have an example of formal gardening in the great fountain basins of the Crystal Palace. There is nothing more melancholy than the walls, fountain basins, clipped trees, and long canals of places like these, not only because they fail to satisfy the desire for beauty, but because they suggest wasted effort and riches worse than lost. There are, from \‘ersailles to Caserta, a great many ugly gardens in liurope, but at Sydenham we have the greatest modern example of the waste of enormous means in making hideous a fine piece of ground. This has been called a work of genius, but 31:72; .444: /.fiL.CZT:/Hp_,:_,__ 575:). 4439—.47, 32% 5:1. m_4._;4/£ 4 77115 ENGLISII FLOIVEA’ GARDEN it is the fruit of a vulgar ambition to outdo another sad monument of great means put to base uses—Versailles. But Versailles is a relic of a past epoch, and was the expression of such knowledge of the gardening art as men possessed at the date of its creation. Our means for garden adornment have increased a hundredfold since Versailles was designed, and our modern illustration of a barbarous style has none of the excuses which might be urged for Versailles. As Versailles had numerous tall water-squirts, the best way of glorify- ing ourselves was to make some taller ones at Sydenham ! Instead of confining the geometrical gardening to the upper terrace, by far the greater portion of the ground was devoted to the baser features of a stony style of garden design, and nearly in the centre were placed the vast fountain basins with their ugly pipes. These water basins are more hideous than the crater of a volcano. The contrivances to enable the water to go downstairs, the temples, the statues, the dead walls, all add to the distracting elements of the central region. This costly rubbish was praised by the gardening papers as the marvellous work of a genius Paxton! When a private individual indulges in expensive fancies, he may not injure many but himself and his family ; but in this public garden —set up as an example of all that is admirable—we have, in addition to wasteful outlay, an object absolutely hurtful to the public taste. It sows the seeds of its ugliness all over the country. Many whose lawns were, or might readily have been made, the most beautiful of gardens have spoiled them for sham terraced gardens. There is a modern castle in Scotland where the embankments are piled one above another, till the whole looks as if Uncle Toby with an army of corporals had been carrying out his grandest scheme in fortification. The style is in doubtful taste in climates and positions more suited to it than our own, but he who adopts it at the present day, and in the presence of the many trees and plants we now have, is an enemy to every true interest of the garden. The rude stone wall of the hill husbandman, supporting a narrow slip of soil for olive trees or vines, became indeed, in the ornamental garden of the wealthy Roman, an architectural feature, varied by vases, statues, etc.; but it must be remembered that the beauty of an Italian garden, or a geometrical garden of any kind, depends on the predominance of vegetation over the merely artificial. This is true of all gardens, but applies chiefly to the terraced style, inasmuch as it is in that style that artificial things are most seen. TERRACI‘EI) GARDICNH, allowing of an endless variety of architec- tural work, apart from the house, have naturally been much in favour with architects, and with artists who have taken up the profession of landscape gardening. The landscape gardener proper, so to say, DESIGN JAY) I’OSITZOJV 5 impressed by custom, falls in with the popular notion that every house, no matter what its position, should be fortified by terraces. HOUSE. TERRACES TO SUSSEX TH E FORMAL. :52 TWO STYLI TIIlZ Accordingly he busies himself in forming them, usually on level ground. Thus vast sums, ostensibly devoted to the garden, are spent on waterworks, fountains, vases, statues, balustrades, walls, and 6 THE ENGLISH FLOW/Elf (PA/{DEN stucco work. By the extensive use of such materials many a noble lawn is cut up; and sometimes, as at Witley Court, the architectural gardening is pushed so far into the park as to absolutely curtail and injure the prospect. Indeed, if the cost of the stone and stucco ornament lavished on the garden were spent on its legitimate object —the house—it would be all the better for architecture as well as for gardening. Where the ground is level a finer effect results from turf allowed to sweep up to the walk in front, or on some side, of the house than from an elaborate terrace, as may be seen on the north side of Holland House, and in many other English gardens. In many cases there is need for a straight walk, it may be for a small terrace ———but this entirely depends on the position. But where the ground is level, as in most English gardens, there is no occasion for more than a grassy foreground, which leaves us free to adopt natural gardening everywhere. In level town gardens, where the excuse of formal surroundings is used to justify a stony style, it is often a mistake. The best effect is to be obtained, not by carrying architec- tural features into the usually small town garden, but by securing an absolute contrast between the garden vegetation and its unavoidable formal surroundings. This contrast should be got, not by the sham picturesque, with rocks, cascades, and undulations of the ground, but mainly by the simple dignity of trees and the charm of level turf. It was said that none but an Italian garden would suit South Kensing- ton. Well, we had an elaborate garden designed there, and skilfully designed : the design was carried out with the greatest care, yet the result, as everybody knows, was poor indeed. There are many private gardens in European cities, of a more limited extent and with more formal surroundings than that of South Kensington, which are as beautiful and as devoid of artificial aspects as if in some happy valley far away from the city. We may often see the effect of the terrace wall approaching the house from some pleasant part of the park. If the wall be raised, as in places it must be, on the level or nearly level ground, so as to cut the foreground of the house off from the park, a bad effect results. A beautiful house should not be cut off by any ugly wall. In many places laid out at great cost within the past thirty years or so the effect from the park is as cheerful as a piece of the wall of Millbank I’rison. Another matter of some importance is that these geometrical gardens prevent the formation of wide and beautiful lawns. ;\ simple lawn is the happiest thing in a garden. For many years past there has been so much cutting up, geometry, and stonework, that it is extremely rare to find a good lawn left. Many a site cut n t". q, l ' R '3}? " H (v "w‘: \ 56“!“ \ 0" FUR I{ A\ R DY FLOWERS. LAWN GARDEN SIMI’LI‘ I.lNI)JVIl£I,l). A I’lu\('l{, ULI) 8 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN up by terrace gardens and other formalities would be vastly improved by the substitution of a large nobly-fringed lawn. Imagine a fine, well—built old house, seen across a wide lawn, with plenty of trees and shrubs on its outer parts, and nothing to impede the View; and then consider the wisdom of facing it with a wide terrace. A very common, poorly-built house with a fine lawn has often a better effect than a fine one with a rectilineal garden and terraces in front of it. If men would watch the effect of such lawns as remain to us, and compare them with what has been done by certain landscape gardeners, there would shortly be, at many a country seat, a rapid carting away of the terrace and all its adjuncts. The Italian made his terrace because he could not make a lawn on the steep hillside. In imitating him we do away with the most precious feature of the English garden—the lawn. Some of the finest lawns in England have been destroyed to make costly, lifeless terraces. I would, of course, except cases in which the terrace was really called for by the nature of the ground, and have no desire to limit the flower garden in any way. The few complicated and paltry beds that are on these terraces, to serve the place of the flower garden, are not half big enough for raising all the beautiful flowers we ought to grow. In removing, in a large place, a useless terrace, and in forming a sweet lawn instead, I should make three times the amount of flower space in different parts of the garden or the pleasure ground—on the outer fringes of the lawn, by the sides of the pleasant walks, anywhere, in fact, that favourite plants can be grown best and would look best. Abolish all complex beds and adopt simple, large forms, using an irregular outline in the case of picturesque lawns. I have formed such beds on the great terrace at Shrubland Park, Suffolk, where the formal plan required all the beds to be alike in shape; so that one may be as bold and simple in such a garden as on the margins of a beautiful sweep of turf. A striking example of a style of garden design that for a long time has had an injurious effect on country seats, and especially on the garden and the park, is the “railway embankment ” phase of landscape gardening madness—one in which we see a series of sharply—graded slopes, exactly like well—smoothed railway embank- ments, more or less relieved by fountains, balustrades, etc. It is extraordinary that anybody supposed to have any taste should imagine that such an arrangement, marring the whole landscape, should give pleasure to any human being, or do anything but make the home landscape formal and wearisome to the last degree. DESIGJV AND POSITION 9 A FEW WORDS WITH AN ARCHITECT A beautiful house in a fair landscape is the most delightful scene of the cultivated earth, all the more so if there be an artistic garden—the rarest thing to find! The union between the house beautiful and the ground near it—a happy marriage it should be— is worthy of more thought than it has had in the past, and the best ways of effecting that union artistically should interest men more and more as our cities grow larger and our lovely English landscape shrinks back. \Ve have never yet got from the garden and the home landscape half the beauty which we might get by abolishing the needless formality and geometry which disfigure so many gardens, both in plan and in flower planting. Formality is often essential to the plan of a garden—never in the arrangement of its flowers or shrubs. To array these in rigid lines, circles, or patterns, can only be ugly wherever done! That men have never yet generally enjoyed the beauty of good - garden design is clear from the fact that the painter is driven from the garden! The artist dislikes the usual class of garden with its formality and bedding; he hates it, and cannot help hating it. He . will seek anything but the garden, but may, perhaps, be found near a wild Rose tossing over the pig-stye. This dislike is natural and right, since from most flower gardens the possibility of any beautiful result is shut out! Yet the beautiful garden exists, and there are numbers of cottage gardens in Surrey or Kent that are as “paintable” as any bit of pure landscape! Why is the cottage garden often a picture, and the gentleman’s garden near wholly shut out of the realm of art—a thing which an artist cannot long look at? It is the absence of pretentious “plan” in the cottage garden which lets the flowers tell their own tale ; the simple walks going where they are wanted ; flowers not set in patterns; the walls and porch alive with flowers. Can the gentleman’s garden, too, be a picture? Certainly; and the greater the breadth and means the better the picture should be. But never if our formal “ decorative ” style of design is kept to. Reform must come by letting Nature take her just place in the garden. After we have settled the essential approaches and levels around a house, the natural form or lines of the earth herself are in nearly all cases the best to follow, and in my work I face any labour to get the ground back into its natural grade where it is disfigured by ugly or needless banks, lines, or angles. But in the true Italian garden 01; Z/ze /zz'//5 we have to alter the natural line of the earth or “terrace” it, because we cannot otherwise 1:7;313 .: nfTZ/ng :_.:_/_T: \ 4. «4‘, Ex w‘ . DESIGN AIVD POSITION II cultivate the ground or stand at ease upon it. In such ground the strictly formal is as right as the lawn in a garden in the Thames valley. But the lawn is the heart of the true English garden, and as essential to it as the terrace to the gardens on the steep hills. English lawns have been too often destroyed for “geometrical" gardens not only needless, but absolutely ruinous both to the garden and the home landscape. Sometimes on level ground the terrace walls cut off the landscape from the house, and, on the other hand, the house from the landscape! I hold that it is possible to get every charm of a garden and every use of a country place without sacrificing the picturesque or beautiful; that there is no reason, either in the working or design of gardens, why there should be a single false line in them ; and that every charm of the flower garden may be secured by wholly avoiding the knots and scrolls which subordinate all the plants and flowers of a garden, all its joy and life, to a wretched con- ventional design. The true way is the opposite. With only the simplest plans to ensure good working, we should see the flowers and feel the beauty of plant forms, and secure every scrap of turf wanted for play or lawn, and for every enjoyment of a garden. It is natural that these views should meet with opposition, and the consideration of an article by Mr. R. T. Blomfield in the Porlfo/z'o (December 1889) gives us the opportunity of examining the objections. He says :— The question briefly stated is this: Are we, in laying out our gardens, to ignore the house, and to reproduce uncultivated Nature to the best of our ability in the garden? Or are we to treat the house and garden as inseparable factors in one homogeneous whole, which are to co-operate for one premeditated result? No sane person has ever proposed to ignore the house. Where there is a beautiful house it tells me what to do! Unhappily, the house is often so bad that nothing can prevent its evil effect on the garden. Reproducing zmculz‘z'valea’ zVaz‘ure is no part of any gardener’s business, as the whole reason of a flower garden is that it is a home for cultivated Nature. A wretched flowerless pinched bedding plant and a great buff climbing Tea Rose are both cultivated things, but what a vast difference in their beauty! There are many kinds of “cultivated Nature,” and many kinds of ugliness among them. Sir C. Barry’s idea was that the garden was gradually to become less and less formal till it melted away into the park. Compromises such as these, how- ever, will be rejected by thorough-going adherents of the formal gardens, who hold that the garden should be avowedly separated from the adjacent country by a clean boundary line, a good high wall for choice. 12 TIIE EAVGL/Sll FLUU'E/t‘ GUI/CDEA' \Vould Mr. Blomfield put this high wall in front of Gilbert White's house at Selborne, of Golder’s Hill at Ilampstead, or of many English houses where a high wall would cut off the landscape? Not a word about the vast variety of situations, each requiring to be treated quite differently. There are many gardens in every county that would be robbed of their best charms if separated from the adjacent country by a “ good high wall.” \\'.\l‘l~‘.l{)lOL‘l‘ll k‘.\i\"l‘l,lfi, DIWUX. th\ HRUL'NI) \\'lll-‘.l\'l". 'l'lilx‘RAClXLi IS l‘KSlCNTlAl. ,YV/t‘ Y‘Htt' [awaited/”r Mr. Blomfield attributes this to me: That is to say. we go to (lander and l1:l\lll:_;' saturated our minds with his rocks and trees, we return to Nature and try to worry her into a resemblance to Claude. I am never concerned with t‘lande, but seek the best expression 1 can secure of our beautiful linglish real landscapes. which are far finer than (‘laude‘s ;\t least l ne\'er saw any painted landscape like these— that from the Chestnut \\'alk at Slii‘tiblaiitf for instance. looking over the. lovely Suffolk country. That is the precious heritage we have to keep. ;\nd that is where simple and picturesque DESIGN AND POSITION 13 gardening will help us—making the garden a beautiful foreground for the true landscape, instead of cutting it off with a “high wall” or anything else that is ugly and needless. The lawns are not to be left in broad expanse, but to have Pampas Grasses, foreign shrubs, etc., dotted about on the surface. I have fought for years for the lawn destroyed by the terrace builders and the bedding-out gardeners! But how are we to have our lawns in “broad expanse” if we build a “good high wall ” and cut off even the possibility of a lawn? In too many cases this has been done to the ruin of all good effect, often shutting out landscapes as good and simple as ever were painted! There are flagrant instances in the suburbs of London. Buildings in Rc/alz'mz z‘o 2‘/ze Garden The use of formal gardening is clear for ever. The architect can help us much by building a beautiful house! That is his work. The true architect seeks to go no farther. The better the real work of the architect is done, the better for the garden and the landscape. If there are any difficulties of level about the house beautiful he should deal with them; and the better his work and the necessary terracing, if any, the pleasanter the work of the gardener who has to follow him. If a garden has any use, it is to treasure beautiful flowers, shrubs, and trees. In these days—when to a great extent our ways of building are the laughing—stock of all who care for the beautiful— there is plenty for the architect to do without spoiling our gardens. Most of the houses built in our time are so bad that even the best gardens could hardly save them from contempt. But I am very glad to see that we are beginning to build beautifully again—for example, at Clouds, by Mr. Philip Webb, and Batsford, by Messrs. George and Peto. Such work, however, is quite enough to absorb all the architect’s energies without his dealing with the vast number of things which gardening is now concerned with. It should be remembered, moreover, that our garden flora is now so large that it requires almost a life’s work to know it. How is a man to make gardens wisely if he does not know what has to be grown in them? Consider the great number of trees from North America alone ; how men can presume to design landscapes without these trees, which they know nothing of and care nothing for, is beyond belief. It is only fifth-rate architects who scatter stony rubbish about a landscape and call it gardening! I do not mean that we are to exclude everybody but the landscape gardener proper from the L; Til/i EA'GL/S/l FLOII’E/t‘ GA/C/Ufl' garden. \Ve want all the help we can get from those whose tastes and training enable them to help us~—the landscape painter best 0t 'l‘lil151V made in the autumn, winter, or spring season, and no gardener will grudge the attention necessary for such fine things, unless he has the care of many thousand bedding plants. But a great many delightful plants can be planted permanently, and be either allowed to arrange themselves, to group with others, or to grow among peat-loving shrubs which, in hundreds of places, stand unrelieyed. One of the best reforms will be to avoid the “ rug pattern," and adopt large and simple beds, placed singly or in groups, in positions suited to the plants they are to contain. These can easily be filled .\ MleCll “('RiH‘R 0|" ll.\l\‘l>\' l'l.t>\\'lll{$. permanently, or partially so, because the planter is free to deal with them in a bolder and more artistic way, and need not make them correspond with other beds. In this way, also, the delight of tlowers is much more keenly felt. One sees them relieved, sees them at different times, and has to make a little journey to see them when they are. not all stereotyped under the window. Roses— favourites with everybodym- grouped in their different classes. and not trained as standards, would lend themselves admirably to eulture with other things. For instance, we might have l\loss Roses growing out of a carpet of double l’rimroses, Tea Roses with t‘arnations or Hybrid BORDERS, BEDS, AND GROUPS OF [[ARDY FLOIVERS 6I Perpetuals, and the varied kinds of beautiful Irises. Then there are many groups which could be made by the aid of the finer perennials themselves, such as the Delphiniums and white Phloxes, by choosing things that would go well together, where the plants permitted it, and finishing with fringes of dwarf plants to cover bare spaces by carpets of beautiful flowers. Other plants, such as Yuccas, of which there are now a good many beautiful kinds, are, perhaps, best by themselves; and noble groups they form, whether in flower or not. The kinds of Yucca that flower very freely, such as Y. recurva and Y. flaccida, lend themselves to grouping with Flame Flowers (Tritoma) and the bolder autumn plants. The gardener who is not overworked with excessive planting in the beginning of summer, year by year may, by thinking over the matter and visiting extensive collections, devise some beautiful new features, and soon make his garden rich in lasting beauty. No plan which involves an expensive yearly effort on the same piece of ground can ever be satisfactory. All garden plants require attention, but not annual attention. The true way is quite different—the devotion of the skill and effort to fresh beds each year. It does not exclude summer “ bedding,” but includes numerous possibilities of lovely and varied aspects of vegetation far beyond that attainable in summer “bedding.” It attempts to make the garden artistically beautiful. It also helps to make the skill of the gardener effective for lasting good, and prevents its being thrown away in annual fireworks. There can be no gardening without care ; but is there not a vast difference between some of the beds and groups just mentioned and those which disappear with the frosts of October, and leave us nothing but bare earth P The main charm of bedding plants—that of lasting in bloom so long—is really their most serious fault. It is the stereotyped kind of garden which we all have to fight against; we want beautiful and varying gardens, and should, therefore, have the flowers of each season, and they should tell the season. Too short a bloom is a misfortune; but so is too long a bloom. Numbers of hardy plants bloom quite as long as can be desired. There is nothing whatever used in bedding out to be compared in colour, scent, size, or bloom, or in any way, with flowers belonging to many families of hardy plants. The patronising admissions of “ interesting,” “pretty,” which we sometimes hear are ridiculously misplaced. There is no beauty among bedding plants at all com— parable with that of Irises, Lilies, Delphiniums, Evening Primroses, Paeonies, Carnations, Narcissi, and a host of others. Are we to put aside or into the background all this glorious beauty for the sake of a few things that merely give us flat colour? Let those who like ()2 771/? LIVUL/S/l 15/,011'15/9 (Ll/C/‘ICA’ bedding flowers enjoy them ; but no one who knows what the plants of the northern and temperate world are can admit that this poor sort of gardening should have the first place. 'l‘here is nothing among “ bedding" plants equal to \\'indllowers——;\nemones‘ in many kinds, tlowering in spring. summer, and autumn; lilame Flowers (Tritoma), superb in autumn ; Columbines ; llarebells : Delphiniums —no blue or purple tlowers equal to these ; llay l.ilies 1 liyerlasting llel‘l l' t‘l‘ \ll r\lN|\\ \\\ll l\ l‘eas; livening l’rimroses. many bold kinds; l‘.eonies, both showy and delicate eolours‘ some tragrant; l’hloxes, in many kinds; Ranunenluses, double and single. and the many tine species; all the noble, autumn—blooming, lktisylike flowers; the large blue Seabious and the smaller kinds; the larkspnrs, charming in colour; plumy Spira'as; (ilobe Flowers. line in term; lilies, in noble Variety; l‘olyanthus; l’rinn'oses; .\nrienlas; \Valllloners; Meadow Salli'ons; t‘roeuses. many kinds. both ot the spring and autumn; BORDERS, BEDS, AJVD GROUPS 0/" HARDY FLOIVERS 63 Scillas ; Gladioli ; Snowflakes ; Grape Hyacinths ; Narcissi, in lovely variety ; Tulips, the old florists’ kinds, and many wild species; Yucca, free-flowering kinds; Thrifts; Carnations and Pinks; Dielytras; \‘eronicas; Cornflowers; Foxgloves; Rhodanthes; Stocks; Asters‘; the Great Scarlet and other Poppies; Christmas Roses, both of the winter and spring; Forget-me-nots; Pansies; and the pretty mountain \Vallflowers, and yellow and purple and white Rock Cresses of the mountains of Europe—from the Alps to the hills of Greece, cushioned with Aubrietia and sky-blue VVindflowers. All these are hardy as the Docks by the frozen brooks. FLOWER BORDERS—The usual way in which people attempt to cultivate hardy flowers is in what is called the “mixed border.” This may be made in a variety of ways, and its success will depend equally upon how it is made and upon the position in which it is placed. It is frequently made on the edge of a plantation of trees, the roots of which leave little for the flowers. And now as to the various plans by which hardy flowers may be best brought near us. The bounteous store at hand for this, and the way to use it, will be found by means of the alphabetical arrangement of this book. The number of plants is so large that it is hopeless to give even an outline of the numerous ways in which they may be grown. Still, I may help many who, up to the present, have had the idea that a flower garden is a thing to be spread out in one spot, the plants of the same height all growing under the same conditions, their duty being to flower together and for a long time, and give us effects as like tile patterns as flowers can be made to give by torturing and pinching them into shapes and sizes they were never given by their mother Nature. In fact, the tendency has been to go farther than this on the part of certain stupid garden designers, who, knowng nothing about plants, thought they would be more certain of their effects by having a flower garden in broken slate or marble, as at Ken— sington, Crewe Hall, and many other gardens made even in our own day. The face of a shrubbery should be broken; the shrubs should not form a hard line, but the hardy plants should begin at the line, and here and there the shrubs should come out to the edge and finish it, breaking the border agreeably. The variety of positions and places afforded by the front of a shrubbery is delightful. Here and there, even in a large open space, one might have groups or masses of plants requiring good cultivation, but it would generally be best to avoid this, and use plants which do not depend for their beauty on high culture—which, in fact, fight their way among shrubs ——and there are a great many of them, such as the evergreen Candy- 64 THE ENGLISI! FLOIVER GAA’DEzV tuft, the large—leaved Saxifrage, the Acanthus, the Day Lily, the Everlasting Pea, and Solomon’s Seal. A scattered, dotty mixed border along the face of a shrubbery gives a miserable effect, but a good effect may be secured by group- ing the plants in the open spaces between the shrubs, making a careful selection of plants, each occupying a bold space. Nothing can be more delightful than a border made thus; but it demands a know- ledge of plants, and that desire to consider plants in relation to their surroundings which is never shown by those who make a “dotty” mixed border, which is the same all the way along and in no place looks pretty. The presence of tree and shrub life is a great advan- tage to those who know how to use it. Here is a group of shrubs over which we can throw a delicate veil of some pretty creeper that would look stiff and wretched against a wall. Here is a shady recess beneath a flowering tree : instead of planting it up with shrubs in the ordinary gardening way, cover the ground, if more important plants will not grow in it, with VVoodruff, which will form a pretty carpet, and flower very early in the year, and through the Woodruff dot a few common British Ferns; in front of this use only low plants, and we shall thus get a pretty little vista, with shade and a pleasant relief. Next we come to a bare patch on the margin. Cover it with a strong evergreen Candytuft, and let this form the edge. Then allow a group of Japan Quince to come right into the grass edge and break the margin; then a carpet of broad—leaved Saxifrage, receding under the near bushes and trees ; and so proceed artistically, making groups and colonies, considering every point, and never using a plant of which you do not know and enjoy the effect. This border plan is capable of considerable variety, according to whether we are dealing with an established and grown shrubbery, a medium one of flowering trees and shrubs, or a choice plantation of flowering livergreens. In the last case, owing to the soil and the neat habit of the bushes, we have excellent conditions in which good culture and effective arrangement are possible. One can have the finest things among them—if the bushes are not jammed together. The ordinary way of planting shrubs is such that they grow together, and then it is not possible to have flowers between them, nor to see the true form of the bushes, which are lost in one solid leafy mass. In growing fine things—Lilies or Cardinal Flowers, or tall Evening l’rimroses among open bushes we form a delightful garden, we secure sufficient space for the bushes to show their form and habit, and we get light and shade among them. In such plantations one might have in the back parts “ secret " colonies of lovely things which it might not be desirable to show in the front of the border, or which required shade and shelter that the front did not afford. BORDERS, BEDS, JAY) 0/90 (7115‘ 01“ 127.4 16/) 3' [7,0 IVE/CS (>5 Till-1 FLOWER BoRmiR AGAINs'l‘ .-\ \\'.\LI..———In many situations near houses, and especially large old houses, there are delightful opportunities for a very beautiful kind of flower border. The stone forms an excellent background, and cuts off any exhausting vegeta— tion. Here we have conditions exactly opposite to those in the shrubbery; there are no hungry trees behind our plants to steal their food. Here we can have the best soil, and keep it for our favourites; we can have Delphiniums, Lilies, l’reonies, Irises, and all choice plants well grown. If the wall happens to be near the .\ \VliLL-tuVIfilx‘l-ZI) BORDER 0F HARDY 17L0\\VERS. CAMPDEN, GLOS. house, and we do not wish to have climbers on it, it is none the less valuable, especially if it be a good stone wall. It may be adorned with climbers of delicate growth, climbing Rose, \Vistaria, \Vine, or Clematis, which will help out our beautiful mixed border. Those trees must to some extent be trained, although they may be allowed a certain degree of abandoned grace even on a wall. In this kind of border we have, as a rule, no contrasts from shrubs, and therefore we must get the choicest variety of plant life into the border itself. \Ye must try to secure a constant succession of interest, and this is very easy. There is scarcely a month of the year in which we may not have delightful things in bloom. In I“ 66 TIIE ENGLISH FLOW/ER GARDEN winter this kind of border may have a bare look when seen from the windows. The variety of plants is, however, so great, that we can make it evergreen by evergreen herbaceous plants. In large places also there are frequently positions not seen from the windows—fine massive walls that would form an admirable background to a mixed border composed wholly of hardy flowers, carefully chosen. On these walls a choice selection of well-grown climbers and evergreens forms an excellent addition to the hardy plants in the foreground. Where the wall is broken with pillars, a still better effect may be obtained by training Vines and \Vistaria along the top and over the pillars or the buttresses. THE FLOWER BORDER IN THE FRUIT OR KITCHEN GARDEN—— \Ve have here the original and perhaps the commonest form of mixed garden. This kind of border is often badly made, but may be a delightful one. The plan is to secure from about 8 to 10 feet of rich soil on each side of the walk, and cut the borders off from the main garden by a trellis of some kind from 6 feet to 9 feet high. This trellis may be of strong iron or galvanised wire, or, better still, of simple rough wooden branches ——uprights topped by other branches of the same kind. Any kind of rough permanent trellis will do. On this rough trellis we may grow Climbing Roses and Clematis, and all the choicer but not too rampant climbers. More- over, we can grow them in their natural grace along the wires or rough branches, or up and across a rustic wooden trellis—Rose and Jasmine showing their grace uncontrolled. \Ve fix the main branches to the supports, and leave the rest to the winds. We have the finest type of mixed border in this way, because we have all the graceful climbing plant life we desire in contrast with the flowers in the border. Mixed borders may be made in various ways; but you will do well always to bear in mind the following points: Select only good plants ; throw away weedy kinds ; there is no scarcity of the very best. See good collections. l’ut, at first, the good kinds selected in lines across 4-feet nursery beds, so that a stock of young and strong plants may be at hand, and you may be able to exchange with others as well as form groups. Make bold borders which cannot be robbed by the roots of trees; see that the ground is thoroughly prepared, and rich, and that there is the best friable soil at least 2.1, feet deep. The soil should be so deep that, in a dry season, the roots can seek their supplies far below the surface. On the making of the border depends whether the vegetation will be bold or stunted. If you are limited to one border only, some variety in the soil will be necessary to meet the various wants of peat-loving and moisture-loving plants. In planting, plant in groups, and not />‘L)/\‘/l[§/\‘.\‘. BIS/U. .-1-\'/) G/x‘UIY’A' 0/" [L-[lC/U' /v‘/,()Il'/f/C.S' 67 in the old dotting way. Never repeat the same plant along)T the border at intervals, as is so often done with favourites. Plant a bold, natural group of it, or two or three groups if you must have so many. ‘R W . {9:33 .4 HARDY E‘Jiiirhii lIJJ'v‘JLitw AGAINST H’JL'SIZ. \‘x'l’l'lf (lllfilljldx'h lH-LUINI). Do not graduate the plants always from the front to the back, as is generally done, but sometimes let a bold and sturdy plant come towards the edge: and, on the other hand, let a little carpet of a dwarf plant pass in here and there to the back, so as to give a 08 777E ExVGL/S]! FLOIVEIC (;_»I]\’1>EiV broken and beautiful instead of a monotonous surface. Have no patience with bare ground. Cater the border with dwarf plants ; do not put them along the front of the border only. Let Hepaticas and double and other Primroses, and Saxifrages, and Golden Money— wort and Stonecrops, and Forget—me-nots, and dwarf Phloxes, and many similar plants cover the ground among the tall plants every- where—at the back as well as the front. Let the little ground plants form broad patches and colonies by themselves occasionally, and let them pass into and under other plants. A white Lily will be all the better for having a colony of creeping Forget-me-nots over it in the winter. The variety that may be thus obtained is infinite. Thoroughly prepared at first, the border should remain for years without any digging in the usual sense. If the border is in the kitchen garden, or in any other position where it is desired to cut it off from its surroundings, erect a trellis at its back and cover this with climbing plants—Clematises, Roses, Sweet Briers, Honeysuckles, or any beautiful hardy climbing plants, not twined too stiffly but allowed to grow into free wreaths. To avoid loss in severe winters employ Roses of the hardiest kinds only; the old single Clematis, the mountain and the sweet autumn Clematis (C. Flammula), as well as other single kinds, should have a place here as much as the larger forms. If the soil is not very deep or well prepared, and the surface is not covered with small plants, it will be well in many cases to mulch the ground in summer by placing an inch of some light dressing on it. \Yhen a plant is old and rather too thick, never hesitate to replant it on a wet day in the middle of August or July any more than in the middle of winter. Take it up and put a fresh bold group in fresh ground ; the young plants will have plenty of roots by the winter, and in the following spring will flower much stronger than if they had been transplanted in spring or in winter. Do not pay much attention to labelling; if a plant is not worth knowing, it is not worth growing; let each good thing be so bold and so well grown as to make its presence felt. 'l‘lll: MIXED BOR1)1£1{,in which the plants are placed in rows, a single specimen of each, the tall growing ones having their flower— stems tied to stakes rigidly upright, is among the very worst arrange- ments for hardy flowers ; but not the mixed border, in which spread- ing plants are allowed to form great patches yards across All hardy plants will be found to have the best effect when planted in an informal manner. This does not mean that the plants are to be planted higgledy—piggledy ; this is the very reverse of Nature‘s arrangements. \\'hen plants seed, the seedlings come up all round them and form clumps and masses; occasional seeds get blown 69 FORD/€135, REDS. :LVP 01605719 01“ HARDY FLOU’E/VS away or carried away by birds. so that the approach to the colony of- any particular plant is generally indicated by the appearance of , stragglers detached from the principal groups. Let one thingT be a PORTION Hli Glx’HL'l‘ Ui' PINK _l.\l'.\.\' AXEMUNE IX 'l'lll; GARDEN .\'l‘ Mllx‘lillUL'bli, Kli>\\'l(,l\'. feature in the several parts of the garden at one season, and all the rest be subordinate. At a particular time. for instance, a corner might be conspicuous for its l’hloxes, at another time for its Roses. for its Dahlias, at another for its Gladioli, for its Japanese Anemones, and so on, always choosing for the conspicuous plants 70 THE EZVGLISH FLOIVE/C GARDEJV ‘ those which remain in bloom for a considerable time, and keeping ‘ subordinate those whose blooming period is short. MR. FRANK MILES ON TIIE FLOWER BORDER—Among the first to see the merits of naturally carpeting beds, and who made the border suggested in my “ Hardy Flowers,” was the late Mr. Frank Miles, an excellent gardener. His own account of his work I give here. If we are to have mixed borders of herbaceous plants, one thing is quite certain—we can never go back to the borders of our ancestors, in which every plant had a bare space of ground round it. In the spot where once a plant had bloomed there was an end for the year of any flowers. N ow a yard of ground should have bloom on it at least eight months in the year, and this applies to every yard of ground in a really good mixed border. I am certain that, once a border is well made, it need not be dug up at all. But the question is—what is a well-made border? I think a border is not well made, or suitable for growing the most beautiful plants to perfection, unless it is as well made as a Vine border in a vinery. \Vhy we should not take as much trouble with the garden border as the border of a conservatory I cannot imagine, seeing that Lilies will grow II feet high in the open air, not less than 10.1; inches across the flower, and Irises little less than that. The more I garden, the deeper I get my drainage, and the fuller of sand and fibre my soil. I consider, first, that a border must have a bed of broken bricks or other drainage, with ashes over that, to prevent the drainage from filling up ; secondly, that that bed of drainage must have 2 feet of light soil over it ; thirdly, that that soil must have equal parts of sand, soil, and vegetable matter. A soil of these constituents and depth is never wet in winter and never dry in summer. During the dry weather I found soil like this, in which quantities of auratum Lilies were growing, to be quite moist an inch below the surface, and I know in winter it always appears dry compared with the natural garden soil. But, for all practical intents and purposes, every 6 inches of ground could contain its plant, so that no 6 inches of bare ground need obtrude on the eye. Almost any kind of bare rock has a certain beauty, but I cannot say bare ground is ever beautiful. Nature covers bulbs with greenery, and we can do it in our gardens. \Vell, supposing the back of the border filled with Delphiniums, Phloxes, and Roses, pegged down, and other summer and autumn—blooming plants, and supposing the border to be made as I have described it, I should carpet the ground at the back with winter—blooming flowers, so that when the Roses are bare and the Delphiniums and Phloxes have not pushed above ground, the border should even then be a blaze of beauty. Crocuses, Snowdrops, Aconites, and l‘rimroses are quite enough for that purpose. The whole space under the Roses I should cover with the Common \\'ood Anemone, and the golden \Vood Anemone, and early t‘yclamens, and the earliest Dwarf Daffodils. And among the Roses and l‘a‘onies and other medium tall shrubs I would put all the taller Lilies, such as require continual shade on their roots: and such as pardalintnn and the Californian section generally, all the forms of auratum (though the scarlet form does not grow quite so high, and wants to be more in front of the border) : Lilies, like excelsum, tigrinum splendens, monadelphum, Martagon album, longiflorum \\'ilsoni, dalniaticum, llansoni, and giganteum. Now we come more to the front of the border, and here I would have combinations, such as the great St. Bruno‘s Lily (.-\nthericum Liliastrum mains) and the delicate hybrid Columbines, l’riniroses planted over hardy autumn (Iladioli, so that when the l‘rimroses are at rest the Gladioli should catch the eye: Carnations and Daffodils, planted so that Rt )ICDEA‘S, BEDS, :1 ND (711’ 0 UPS OF EL 1/01) l ' [3], O IVE/US 71 the Carnations form a maze of blue-green for the delicate creams and oranges of the Daffodils. \Vhen the Daffodils are gone there are the Carnations in the autumn. -\ mass of lberis corre‘tefolia happens to have been the very best thing possible for some Lilium Browni to grow through, for the lberis flowered early and then made a protection for the young growth of the Browni, and then a lovely dark green setting for the infinite beauty of the Lily flowers. As for say- ing that this cannot be done. I say that it is nonsense, for the lberis flowered beautifully under such circumstances, and the Lilies too. If once you get it into ,\ l'lllx‘fx‘ MURDER ‘.'»'l'l‘ll FLO'A'ERS Illillli .\Nl) 'l'llliRli. your head that no hit of ground ought ever to be seen without flowers or immediate prospect of flowers, heaps of combinations will immediately occur to those con- yersai: with plants and the deep-rootingr habits of most bulbs and the surface rooting of most herbaceous plants ifor instance, Colchicums and Daffodils, with :t suri‘ltce of Campanula pusilla alba. The big leayes of the Colchicum grow in spring. and there would be nothing” but leayes were it not for the masses of l)af:iirlils. l3}: and by the leayes of the Col<:hicurns and Daffodils are dry enough i) pull away. and then the Campanula, be it pusilla. pusilla alba, or turbinata :LIUa. comes into a sheet of bloom. Before the bloom has passed away the Coluhicum blooms begin to push up, and as some of my Colchicums are 5 inches 72 TIIE ENGLISH FLOIVE/t’ GARDE/V across, of the richest rose colour, I do not exactly feel that this is a colourless kind of gardening, and as I have a hundred different kinds of Daffodils, this little arrangement will not be without interest in spring. THE DAI<‘I<‘ODILS and Colchicums root deeply and grow mostly in winter, requiring water then, and not in summer, when the Campanula carpet is taking it all. There are some, however, which one must be careful about——the common white Lily, for instance, which wants exposing to the sun in the autumn. I do not mind the exquisite French Poppies among these candidum Lilies, because the Poppies die about August, and then the Lilies get their baking and refuse to show the bare earth, soon covering it all with their leaves. For the extreme front of the border hundreds of combinations will occur—Pansies over Daffodils, I’ortulacas over Central Asian bulbs, Christmas Roses and Hellebores over the taller Daffodils, with Gladioli, Tritomas, and giant Daffodils, Ilepaticas, and autumn- blooming and spring-blooming Cyclamens, with Scillas and Snowdrops. \Vhen Anemone japonica is low, up come the taller Tulips, sylvestris for instance, and higher still out of the dark green leaves come the bejewelled Crown Imperials. As for the cultural advantages, 1 can imagine this system in the hands of a skilful gardener to be the best of all. In the first place, the plants suffer much less from drought, because there is so much less surface exposed to sun and wind. Examine, not right under the root, but under the spreading part of a Mignonette, and see if, on a broiling hot day, the ground is not much cooler and moister than on the bare ground. lrises are almost the only plants I know of that do require the soil bare about their rootstocks, but then lrises are a carpet of green always, and a few clumps of Tiger Lilies or Tiger lrises will not seriously injure their flowering prospects. And what cannot be done with an herbaceous border edge when that edge is the green Grass? Crocuses and Crocuses all the autumn and winter and spring in the Grass, The tiniest Scillas, and Hyacinths, and Daffodils, and Snowdrops are leading into the border without any break. So I believe, and I think many others will believe by and by, that every bulbous plant ought to be grown in combination with something else, as Amaryllis Belladonna, for instance, which I plant with Arum italicum pictum. In spring the Arum comes up extremely early, and its leaves protect the far more delicate leaves of the Amaryllis till they are growing freely and the Arum dies down. The ground is surfaced with Violets, so that the Belladonnas are now coming into bloom, not with the bare ground but with a setting of Violet leaves in beautiful contrast with their pink blossoms. Christmas Roses of all kinds would probably be a more beautiful setting still, but the Belladonnas want a good deal of summer drying up, which the Hellebores could not stand so well. “’16 CAN NEVER (l0 BACK to the mixed border of our ancestors; we have been spoilt for such blank, flowerless spaces as they had by the gorgeousness of bedding out. But we have now a wealth of hardy plants, especially bulbs, which they never had, and this combination of bulbous plants and herbaceous plants will certainly lead to a preparation of the borders which has been hardly dreamt of by people who do not care what they spend on tropical flowers; for it seems to be forgotten that we have lrises as big as a plate and Lilies as tall as a tree, all hardy and requiring little attention when once they have been properly planted. The time that used to be spent year after year in digging acres of borders might now be spent in properly making or re—making a few yards of border, till the whole outdoor borders are as exactly suited for the growth of plants to the utter- most perfectionfias many as possible being put in the given space as the borders of a large conservatory. It is in such a border as this that we attain the utmost variety, unceasingly beautiful, every yard different, every week varying. holding on its surface at least three times the value of plant life and successional plant beauty of any ordinary garden. The chief enemy to the system is the slug; BOND/{A’s} BEDS, AND Glx’OZY’S 0F [LI/€171" FLOII’E/BS 73 but while the Belladonna Delphinium, which is usually half eaten by slugs in most gardens. grows 6 feet high with me, I am not going to give up my system. \Vhat could be more delightful in a formal garden, even right against the house, than a good mixed border ?——not a stiff collection of staked plants, but a well—stored and well—formed border, filled in autumn with Carnations and I’icotees, as well as Stocks, white Lilies, and Christmas Roses, and in Spring with Daffodils and all the rest of the flowers that in olden times used to adorn these gardens, as well as those we have now. In the garden at l’enshurst l’lace, for example, there is a raised walk on a terrace above the FLOWERS AT THE \\l.\'l)t,r\\' \\'IT1UJL'T IN'l'liRVliXINL} \\X\LK. main garden—a walk alongside of and sheltered by a high wall. Here is the very place for a mixed border, and, accordingly, one has been made there. A noble border of the finer shrubs, with flowers between them, would grace the fairest house or garden yet made. One of the prettiest garden borders 1 know is against a small house. Instead of the walk coming near the windows, a bed of choice shrubs, varying from 9 feet to 15 feet in width, is against the house. Nothing in this border grows high enough to intercept the view. but it is just high enough to hide the walk beyond it. Look— ing out of the windows on the ground floor, you see the foliage and boom of the border, but not the walk, and the eye reaches a green 74 THE EZVGLISH FLOIVER GARDEN lawn beyond. Among the shrubs are tall Evening Primroses, and Lilies, and Meadow Sweets, and tall blue Larkspurs, which after the early shrubs have flowered peer above their leaves. This is an example of the mixed border of choice shrubs which we talked of in connection with beds. The ground is always furnished, and the effect is good, even in winter. Let no one imagine, however, that this system can be carried out without thought, and taste, and labour. Any one can change into work that will last for years much of the profitless labour spent over a large area for a temporary aim; but any economy possible with tender plants is even more practicable with hardy ones, for we can dispense with the whole of the pot-and—kettle business, glass, coal, etc—even smoke ! Digging, in this system, is to be abolished entirely. The beds or borders should be thoroughly prepared, and the things wanted carefully planted. “'0 have afterwards simply to keep the soil wholly free from weeds, and all cultivation must be in the form of surface dressing in autumn or spring. Only when the ground gets worn out, or some portion of it, owing to the excessive growth of a vigorous plant, wants to be replanted and re—enriched, should we take up the whole again. To prevent the effect of bare earth the whole surface should be covered with “ ground plants,” delicate things like Stonecrops or Saxifrages, and many others from the hills or rocks, which spread all over the surface, and frequently give bloom in spring. From these rise the groups of taller plants. Part of the common system in mixed arrangements is to repeat a favourite flower at intervals everywhere. The true way, as already said, is to group enough of any one plant in one or two places, so as to fully enjoy its character, and then be done with it. Besides other advantages this would give us different aspects of vegetation as we passed along the border: Primroses, Cowslips, Bluebells come in tangible, visible masses which we can see and enjoy. Occasion- ally they are mixed, as our groups in the border might be mixed, but they are not mixed in the common way of dotting fifty different things in a few yards’ space. \\'e may have artistic and succeeding mixtures without adopting a muddle mixture, which spoils the whole border. By grouping things we can see better what each subject is doing, and there is less fear of ignorant workmen destroying the plants than when a great number of kinds are dotted about pro- miscuously, with or without labels. This artistic system need not prevent us from growing single specimens in a special border. or a collection for increase in nursery beds. I might pass on from this to beautiful plants like Yucca and Acanthus, which are so full of character that they might stand by flO/x’DE/t‘b‘, BEDS, .-1-\'D GROUPS OF [LI/Cl) l' FLOIVEA’S 75 themselves without any aid or arrangement, but enough has been said to explode the notion that all our fair garden flowers must be grown in obscure borders, where they may be robbed by tree roots and be ill—treated and forgotten, and to show how in one way at least we may fully enjoy them in positions said to be unsuitable. ill (0 l ’ El\£llfr' l’InJVII-LR) l.\' \‘u'.\j'lili CUliNl-le’. Besides beautiful borders and groups and the square or plot garden, we have the possibilities of beds varying in beauty and interest from the evergreen bed of Yuccas and Hellebores, so fine in winter, to the many bright combinations of bulbs in early summer. llere, however, we have to deal with a definite mass or 76 TIZE Iii/V0115]! FLOIVE/i‘ GAR/)EA' group, which demands a different plan. The combinations of grace- ful form, beautiful flowers, and fine colour are endless. we can only suggest a few plans which will not disappoint beginners; those who know the plants can work out new combinations for themselves. 1‘:\'1£RUR1".1£N B01{I>Eus.——It may be noted that the old garden favourites, Rosemary and Lavender, are charming when grouped in borders near or against a house. In summer, Cherry Pie, or Helio— trope, may be planted freely with them. ;\ border so formed contrasts to advantage with more richly-stored and well—arranged borders of brilliant flowers, and there are a great many evergreens among the numbers of flowers now in our gardens. Those who wish for evergreen borders may easily have them from the following hardy plants—Christmas Roses, many; Heuchera,various; Rockfoils (Saxi— fraga). many; Barrenworts (lipimediums), several very pretty ever- greens; evergreen Candytufts (Iberis), several kinds; Stonecrop, (Sedum), many kinds; Galax, one plant; Periwinkle; Adam's Needle, several; Purple Rock—cress (Aubrietia), several; \Vall— flowers (common Alpine} ; Irises, many : Indian Strawberry ; Carna— tions and l’inks; creeping Forget—me-nots (Omphalodes), Alpine l’hlox; \Vhite Rock—cress (Arabis); Sandworts; Mountain Avens; Gentianella; Houseleeks; Thymes; Forget—me—nots; and Lavender cotton. A great aid to these are hardy ferns—which help one to make the most delightful evergreen borders,—such as the common Poly- pody and its varieties; the Hart's tongue and its forms; Lastreas, forms of the filix-mas, and also dilatata, and spinulosa ; the common Ceterach ; the native Maiden—hairs ; Spleenworts. A very important aid can also be had from quite hardy rustic ferns such as the following 2—Cyrtomium faleatum ; Lastrea intermedia, L. goldicana, L. marginales‘ L. Sieboldi: Lomaria chilensis, L. alpina or its var. major; l‘olystichum acrostichoides, l’. angulare Brauni‘ 1’. vestitum proliferum, 1’. setosum, and 1’. munitum. CHAPTER IV THE SPECIAL CULTURE OI“ HARDY FLO\\'ERS—TIIE RESERVE AND CUT-FLO\\'ER GARDENS NOTHING is more unfortunate in gardens than the way in which plants of all kinds are huddled together without any fitness for association in stature, in time of blooming, or in needs of culture. The common scene of confusion is the shrubbery border, into which Carnations, annuals, alpine flowers, and rampant herbs are often thrown, to dwindlc and perish. There is no shrubbery border that could not be made beautiful by carpeting it with wood and copse plants of the northern world in broad masses and groups. But many of our favourite flowers are not wood plants, and many—for example, Car— nations———cannot maintain the struggle against the bushes and trees. Another series of rigorous perennials require isolation if we want their fullest beauty, say the Lilies, Irises, and Pzeonies. The Lilies and Irises will certainly do among bushes, the best of which are those called American, which thrive best in peat soil. Their chances in the common shrubbery with its coarse rooting plants and bushes are very different. Of all causes which tend to make the garden unsatisfac— tory, this inconsiderate placing of many things along the fringes of the garden—grove or shrubbery is the chief. Hardy p/mzz‘x s/zmz/zz’ [76 zz’zt'z'd’az' ill/0 two [ii’Oflti series (If [EdJ‘Z—Z/ZOSK w/zz'c/z Z/zrz't'c 2'72 mad near :uooafi' grocut/z, mm’ [/2055 :u/zz'r/z 7/1215: fan's/z Z/zcre. The Solomon’s Seal and the blue Apennine Anemone are types of plants that one may grow in any shady place: Carnation, Pink, Auricula represent the flowers which must have good soil away from tree roots. Among hardy flowers there are, in fact, two sets—one set which require care and good culture, full sun and air; another which will almost take care of themselves in any soil. 7S TIIE EzVGLIA‘II FLOIVE/t’ GA li’DEA’ One good plan that all can follow is the growing of various lovely plants for their own sakes, without heed to their place in any design, but not in any kind of “mixed border” or in other mixed arrangements. The common way is to put almost every choice plant in the mixed border, but this very often means losing it. Many important families of hardy flowers are worthy of special culture, and no good result can be obtained without it. \Vhether we grow Carnations, l’inks, l’ansies, Phloxes, Lilies, Stocks, double \Vallilowers, Cloves, or tall scarlet Lobelias, in every case they ought to have separate attention. Even an annual, such as the Rhodanthe, l‘th HUN 01’ INCH 01’ \\'lll'l‘l-‘. 'l‘Rl'Ml'lil‘ LILY tl.llill.'i\1 LUNGIliLORL'Ml. or a beautiful Grass, it is not easy to succeed with unless it has a fair chance, away from the confusion of the ordinary flower border. This special culture of favourite flowers is possible either in the beds of the flower garden or in a plot of ground set aside for square beds of the choicer llowers. A good way is to have a piece of ground in or near the kitchen garden or any other open position. sheltered. but not shaded. Such ground should be treated as a market gardener would treat it—well enriched, and open. It can be thrown into four-foot beds, but in this case. the little pathways need not be gravelled or edged: they may simply be marked out with the feet. With the aid of such a division of the garden, the cultivation of many fine hardy plants becomes a pleasure. \\'ell furnished, such a garden is a delight. When the things get tired of the soil. or require a change, it is easy THE SPECIAL CULTURE 0F HARDY FLOIVEICS, ETC. 79 to have a rotation, making the Carnation bed of past years the bulb one for the next year, and so on. It would be easy to change one’s favourites from year to year, so that richly-feeding plants should follow those of a surface-rooting kind, and thus the freshness of the garden would be kept up. It is better to see ground covered with flowering plants than devoted to edgings and gravel. If any edging is used, it should be of thin stone sunk in the earth, as natural stone edgings are not offensive, troublesome, or costly. The abolition of all edgings, beyond one or two main lines through the plot, would tend to more careful culture, as the whole spot could be so readily attended to. Such a plot would be excellent for all who wish to cut flowers in quantity, and also a great aid as a nursery. It would also be a help to exchanges with friends or neighbours, in the gener- ous way of all true gardeners. The space occupied by such an arrangement depends upon the size and wants of the place; but, wherever the room can be spared, an eighth of an acre might be devoted to the culture in simple beds of favourite flowers, and even the smallest garden should have a small plot of this kind. WHAT TO GRow IN THE REsERvE GARDEN. Among the fair flowers which in this way may be cultivated, each separately and well, are the delightful old Clove Carnations—white, crimson, and scarlet, as well as the various mixed and named races of the same family; the tall and graceful Phloxes, so fair in country gardens in the autumn ; the scarlet Lobelias, splendid in colour; Pinks of many kinds, white and coloured, and hybrid; pretty Persian and Turban Ranunculus; bright old garden Anemones, and the finer species of Anemone, like the scarlet A. fulgens; Lilies, commencing with the beautiful old white Lily, and as many as possible of the splendid species introduced into our gardens within the past dozen years from California and Japan; the tall perennial Delphiniums or perennial Larkspurs, with their spikes of lovely blue ; the old double Rockets ; beautiful Irises, English, Spanish, Japanese, and German; Pansies in great variety, the old Tiger Flowers ; the beautiful races of Columbine, including the lovely A. coerulea of the Rocky Mountains and the golden Columbine of the same region; the blue African Lily in various forms, and with it the Belladonna Lily; Pyrethrums, showy and varied; Verbenas, which may be raised from seed during the current year; Chinese Pinks, rich in colour, large, and finely fringed ; the old garden Scabious; the blue Cornflower, one of our most precious things; Sweet \Villiams ; Stocks of many kinds; VVall— flowers, double and single ; the annual Phlox, which has now broken into a fine series of different colours; Zinnias, which, if grown as grown abroad—that is to say, well and singly grown—are very fine in colour and sometimes as large as Dahlias ; China Asters, quilled 30 7'11]? lizVG/JS/l /«‘/,UII'/§/t’ (1'.‘I/\’/)/:'1V and others ; the Sweet Sultan, in two or three forms ; showy tricolour t‘hrysanthemums; Grasses of the more useful kinds, suitable for cutting in winter; Grape llyacinths; Narcissus in choice variety; Meadow Saffrons, pretty in the autumn; Lilies of the Valley, of which a variety of kinds are now coming into cultivation, differing in length and size of raceme; Crocuses, the autumnal as well as the vernal kinds; the hardy Cyclamens, which are at home on the mountains of liurope and hardy in our own gardens; Dahlias, double and single ; Evening l’rimroses; l’:eonies, in splendid variety ; l’rimroses, double and single, of many kinds; l’entstemon, graceful autumn flowers; l’olyanthus, richly-coloured vigorous kinds, for l‘lll{l>'l‘\l.\s ICUMCS 1N Mil) 1N RlCSlCRVli GARDEN. borders ; ()xlips ; 'l‘ulips, many early and late kinds ; Sweet Violets ; American Cowslips; (iladioli, stately tlowers of autumn; Christmas Roses; and lastly, liverlasting l“lo\\‘ct‘>‘, which may be grown with the Grasses, and, like them, be gathered for the house in winter. r\ll these fair flowers deserve special care in the smallest garden, and should not be trusted to the too often ill—tended and ill—cultivated slips called “ mixed borders." \\'e have an example at Munstead of what is meant in the pres ceding passages by a reserve garden. t\s may be seen from the plan, it consists of an oblong piece of ground having the walls of the kitchen garden for two of its boundaries, and a Yew hedge sheltering it from the east winds, while the other is screened by trees and shrubs, with which are intermingled hardy plants of tall growth. The plants are set in beds without reference to the general effect, and all the ‘~I\\\ HE NIKKI 1\IrL\N LILY IN .\ \L'l-(I-iI-LY GARDEN. 82 THE ENGLISfI FLOIVEA’ GARDEN borders being edged with stone dug on the place, give no trouble after the stones are properly set ; when old and moss-grown the stones look better than anything else that could be used—the dwarfer plants being allowed to run over them and break the lines. Every year the plan of such a garden may be varied as our tastes vary and as the flowers want change. A similar garden ought to be in every place where there are borders to be stocked and maintained in good condition, and particularly where there is a demand for cut flowers. In these special gardens for hardy flowers are included the various hardy flowers of florists. The term “florists’ flowers ” was once applied to flowers supposed to be popular with amateurs and florists, but it had never any clear meaning. A Rose is above all a florist's flower; but it is more—it is everybody’s flower, and we call it a Rose, and have no use for any other term. Flowers are for all who see as well as for specialists. In connection with the reserve garden, this is the best place to speak of growing FLOWERs FOR THE BREAKFAST TABLE—VVC hear a good deal of dinner—table decoration, but some attention should be given to the breakfast—table! Things that look well by night are all very well, but give us things that bear the light of the morning on a tablecloth. Some are not interested in flowers till they come near, especially the man so long accustomed to his few yellows, reds, and blues in lines and circles. People who love flowers will have them on their tables, even in London ; but, considering the opportunities for the growth of hardy and beautiful flowers and for collecting them in the hedgerows which the dwellers in the country have, it is surprising that they do not more frequently use them in the house. Bringing the fair forms of many beautiful flowers near is the best way to make converts. The enemy in the way of plenty of cut flowers has hitherto, no doubt, been the gardener. But the poor fellow was confined in his cutting operations to glass houses, which he naturally wished to have gay. A supply equal to that of twenty plant houses can be got from an open square in the kitchen garden, ‘or any piece of good ground. For eight months there is a continual progress of open-air flowers, which can easily be grown in sufficient quantity to allow the cutting of plenty for every want. A bed or a few lines of each favourite in a patch of good soil would give a great number of flowers, and these, aided by the Roses and other bush and tree flowers about the garden, would yield all the flowers that the largest house would require, and many besides for hospitals and for those who have no garden. Flowers grown for cutting should be carefully selected as regards odour, form, and colour. The gardener should do all he can to carry out an idea tending'so much to enhance the resources of his art, and to give people pleasure THE SPECIAL CULTURE 0F HARDY FLOIVEA’S, ETC. 83 at home. The smallest country place can afford a spot of ground to grow flowers for cutting. In large gardens this should be made a feature, and it would be enjoyed for its beauty as much as is the flower garden. From this and the general open garden collections —the woods, hedgerows, and copses—every charm of flower life might be culled in abundance for the adornment of the house. Here flowers, the most choice and elegant in form, should be brought near the eye, not in coarse, unconsidered jumbles, but each bunch placed where it would look best, and in such a quantity as best to show its form. GARDENS OF ONE FLOWER Branching away naturally, so to say, from the reserve garden, with flowers in formal and close masses, we may have for a variety of reasons gardens of one hardy flower and its forms, for the pur- pose of studying a family or adding to it by collecting or cross- breeding. Such gardens may now and then arise from the difficulty of cultivating a flower, as was the case of this most charming garden of the lovely forms of our native Primrose formed by a friend of mine, who thus describes it. A PRIMROSE GARDEN “ No flower better deserves a garden to itself than the Primrose. It is so old a favourite, and has been cultivated into so many forms, that any one determined to have a Primrose garden may choose the kind he likes best, and set to work accordingly. There are the single-stalked Primroses, the earliest of all, flowering from the middle of March onwards, while some may be had in bloom as soon as the end of February. They range in colour from pure white to deep primrose, and from palest pinky—lilac through strong red-purples to a colour nearly approaching blue, and there are also rich reds of many shades. There is not as yet any Primrose of a true pink colour, nor, though the type colour is yellow, are there as yet any strong yellows of the orange class. There are also double Primroses in nearly all the same colourings. The florist’s Polyanthus, with its neat trusses of small flowers, though beautiful in the hand and in- dispensable in the good garden of hardy flowers, is not a plant for the Primrose garden, as it makes no show in the mass. The grand Primroses for garden effect are the large bunch—flowered kinds, white, yellow, and orange-coloured, red, crimson, and rich brown ; of infinite variety in form, texture, habit, and colouring, easy to raise to any amount by seed, as also by division of the older plants. A Primrose THE SPEC/.41: CULTURE 0F [[AA’DY FLOII’EA‘S, ETC. 85 garden (part of which is here illustrated), that for some years has been an ever-increasing source of pleasure and interest to its owners, was formed a few years ago by making a cutting about 70 yards long, and varying from 10 yards to 15 yards wide, through a wild copse of young Birch trees. The natural soil was very poor and sandy, so it was prepared by a thorough trenching and a liberal addition of loam and manure, which has to be renewed every year. No formal walks are made, but one main track is trodden down about 2 feet wide near the middle of the space, dividing into two here and there, where a broader clearing makes it desirable to have two paths in the width. The older divided plants are put into groups of a colour together, from twenty to fifty of a sort. The groups of seedlings are of necessity more various, though they are more or less true to the parent colour, so that a patch of a hundred seed- lings—from yellows, for instance—will give a general effect of yellow throughout the group. The whites and yellows are kept at one end of the garden, and the reds at the other ; the deepest yellows next to the reds. Seen from a little distance, the yellow and white part of the Primrose garden looks like a river of silver and gold flowing through the copse. The white stems of the Birches and the tender green of their young leaves help to form a pretty picture, which is at its best when the whole is illuminated by the evening sunlight.” The question has been much discussed whether it is best to sow Primrose seed as soon as it is ripe, or to keep it over till March in the next year. Such strong opinions have been expressed on both sides, and by such trustworthy writers, that one can only conclude that each way is the best in its own place. Both have been tried in connection with the Primrose garden above described, where the seed sown the next March answers much the best. It may therefore be assumed that this is the way that suits seedlings for a light soil; whereas the sowing as soon as ripe is right on heavier ground, where the plants may also stand two years without division. Hardy Plants for Reserve Garden amz’for Culling Flowers For convenience, a list of the plants suited for such a garden is here supplied. The amateur will bear in mind the distinction between plants which repay, and require special culture, and those which thrive anywhere. Carnations, white, crimson and scarlet Ranunculus (Persian and Turban) Selfs, and mixed and named sorts Anemone, garden varieties and the finer Phloxes species Lobelia cardinalis (Scarlet Lobelia) Lilies Clove Pinks, and named sorts Delphiniums (Larkspurs) 86 77/15 liA’G/JS/l /"/.()IIf/:‘/\' (IX-l/i’IU'IA' l)ouble Rockets Iris, liner kinds l‘ansies Alstrtt‘nieria (Ilerb Lily) 'l‘igridia ('l‘iger-tlmver) Columbines, line varieties and species .~\gapanthus, the various kinds (African Lily) Aniaryllis (hardy), Ackerlnanni l’yrethruin Sehizostylis coccinea (Call-re Lily) Vallota purpnrea (Scarboro‘ Lily) Verbenas Chinese l’inks Seabions Blue Cornflower Sweet \Villiams Stocks Double \Valltlowers 'I‘ricolor Chrysantheniuins Grape Ilyacinth, liner and rarer kinds belladonna and Grasses. the. more graceful kinds. such as the llrizas, lil‘OlllLlSl)l'l11l‘f01‘111l5‘ l’anicuin capillare. Agrostis nebu- losa. and others l‘hlox Drunnnondi Xinuias Sweet Sultan in var. Narcissus, liner and rare kinds, till plentiful enough to spare for scattering in Grass or borders China Asters in various classes Cainpanula, liner kinds for cutting Chrysanthennnns (to flower in open garden) Meadow Saffrons (Colehicuni) Lilies Crinuin capense in vars. (Cape Lily) Crocus. newer and rare species Cyclamen, hardy species llardy Orchids. the liner kinds Dahlia, double, single. bouquet, and fancy l‘a‘onies. in great variety l’entsteinon l‘rimroses l’olyanthus Oxlips Tulips. vars. and species Violets American Cowslips Dog‘s—tooth \‘iolets (iaillardia Gladiolus (Sword Lily) Everlasting flowers for gathering Rho< danthe. Ilelichrysuni, Aeroeliniuin. (inaphaliuni orientale llelleborus. tiner species and varieties LILIES COMING THROUGH CARPET 0F \VHITE ARARIS. C H A P T E R V HARDY BULBS THE special or reserve garden includes beds for hardy bulbs—a very good way of growing them. They are, however, so much used in almost every kind of gardening with hardy plants, that we can treat of them separately to a limited extent only. It will be remembered that each family and kind is dealt with in the body of the book, and its culture there given. Hardy bulbs are among the best plants for affording supplies of flowers for the house. A curious habit of the flowers of bulbs is that when cut from the plants early they get larger than they would out of doors. This peculiarity is one that may lead us to make more of the many lovely flowers among hardy bulbs. Hitherto the horror of the gardener has been cutting flowers for the house; but if cutting prolongs his bloom, strengthens his plants, and gives all who care for his flowers a fuller enjoyment of them, we may secure his power— ful aid. Consider what one may escape in storms, frosts, and other dangers if a flower, cut just on arriving at maturity, lasts longer indoors than out, and actually, as in the case of the Narcissi, gets larger! Narcissi, through their hardiness and drooping heads, endure our climate better than any other flowers, and yet severe storms will beat them about and destroy flowers that might have been happy for days afterwards in the house. When we come to large showy flowers like Tulips and other bulbs exposed to the sky, then we have flowers that must suffer with every heavy shower. Anything which makes the presence of flowers in the house more easy is a real gain. Their exquisite forms are best seen, and tell their story best when brought near to the eye. A flower of our 88 THE ENGLISH FLOII’EIC G.~I/\’])1£N yellow wood Tulip opening and closing, and showing its exquisite form and texture in a room, gives an idea of its grace and beauty which cannot be gleaned by glancing at a bed of bulbs. A variety of hardy bulbs should therefore be grown for their value as cut flowers, apart from their great value in the open garden. The use of bulbs in the wild garden is discussed under that heading. ln grassy or bushy half—wild places the hardier forms and there are are much more at home than on bare borders; and, more— many over, do not need care after planting. One of the most marked improvements is the planting of hand— some bulbs in heavy close masses of Rhododendrons and similar ('HIMNY HI‘ Sl'MXH-IR >T\'U\\'lil..\l\'li. UN .\l.\l\‘(;ll\' ()l’ SHRL'HHICRY {LONGLICA'I‘l bushes. 'l‘hese beds look interesting only when in flower, and not always then. owing to the flat and monotonous surface into which the shrubs are pressed. 1 have frequently suggested that Lilies and the liner bulbs should be placed among the shrubs. In many eases where this \'lC\\' has been extensively adopted it has almost changed the entire aspect of gardens. and given various beautiful types of life instead of only one. Many tine rare bulbs find a home in such beds. which are, as a rule. unhurt by the spade. In placing ehoiee, peat—loving shrubs, give the bushes room to fully attain their natural forms, and plant the interspaees with liner bulbs. Light and shade. relief and grace. are among the merits of this mode of planting. beds of the smaller shrubs will suit admirably for the smaller and more delicate bulbs. lx’ose beds serve. in the same 59 »‘ l 7. /)’.\' //.I/\‘/7l' low shrubs beingY 2m zulumtafrc tu lllCSL‘ 21ml 0t way, tllc shelter ml r from cold winds. caves sullc mzmy bulbs whose l H,“ l\l.l‘. 'lF (,.\\,'l‘l.lL. l'lll‘ l‘CSCl’V'C tbc ulmimblc fur in b *(l s lbcv only in NO‘C 131:1». U .l-l lAl {WC 2 r 0 effect. 3 A fiI it (‘1‘ l l, _ ‘ 1 Lay DUlD~ pmclu ,n ~,l V 4 gm. 90 T1715 ENGLISII FLOII’EA’ (7.-II\’DE1V the lawn, and for quiet corners of the pleasure-ground. The showy beds of bulbs which are to be seen in public and other gardens, and which come so largely into spring gardens, are familiar to all. The beds suggested here are of a higher and more permanent nature, and are to be placed where they will be let alone. In visiting Moulton Grange some years ago I saw on a piece of quiet Grass a bed of Tiger Lilies with no other flowers near to mar its beauty. It was a large oval bed, and the colour of the finely-grown Lilies was brilliant and effective when seen through the trees and glades. In point of colour alone, nothing could be better; the mass of bloom was profuse, and the plants, about 6 feet high, told well in the garden landscape. The plants had a great advantage in habit, form, and colour over the usual dwarf type, which is claimed to be the strong bedding plant. Many hardy flowers of the highest beauty would have as good colour if we took equal pains with them. Colour on a 6~foot plant must usually be more effective than colour on a plant 6 inches or 12 inches high. But this is putting the thing in the lowest way, perhaps, for, after all, flowers will be judged of for other reasons, and however rigid our selection, the stronger and finer varieties of the Tiger Lily must find a place with us. The bed, it may be remarked, was on one of those little bits of turf which occur by most shrubberies, and within a few yards of a walk, so that it could be easily examined near at hand. It was perhaps better so placed, because other plants of varying height and character were not near to confuse or weary the eye. The plant could get exactly the proper culture, and should it tire of the spot, it would be easy to remove it to another home and to replace it with some wholly different plant. Among the most lovely beds are those of the nobler Lilies, in quiet, sheltered spots. The proposed plan also admits of fine variety,—~—in the great hardy kinds, in the varieties of one species, like the Panther Lily, grouped together, or in the finer species mixed. Then, other good combina- tions may arise from intermingling Lilies with the finer Irises, and surfacing and edging the beds with spring flowers. Among Irises, I. reticulata is one of the loveliest of spring flowers, with its Violet— scented blossoms of gold and purple as brave as Snowdrops. BULBS IN THE SI{RUBBICMZ—Here are large opportunities for using the hardier and handsomer bulbs. The present mode of forming a shrubbery should be given up by all. Our many fine hardy shrubs and our suitable climate should make us care more about them. Let each form a specimen, or a group, not mutilated, but well grown and furnished to the ground, the plants not touching each other, because to enjoy the beauty of their form and allow each to assume its natural shape it is necessary to leave spaces, such as do spaces may 112-1 1?!) Y [96185 not occur in the “choke—muddle shrubbery." be alive with bulbous flowers, hardy, and beautiful. 91 Those Any wide belt of shrubbery might be the most delightful garden, varied. broken, not dug on the edge; not stiff in any part ; full of flowering things and beautiful livergreens; and many kinds of bulbs happy among them, and all the better for the common occupa— tion of the soil. Sump Bil/[7020‘ and [MT [Muzzy/2W Brink/z 1701061“ Gardens Acis Agapanthus Allium Alstrmmeria Amaryllis Anemone Antherieum Arum Begonia Calla Calochortus Chionodoxa Colchicum Convallaria Crocus Cyclamen Dahlia Erythronium Fritillaria Galanthus Gladiolus (laltonia Hyacinthus Iris Ixia Ixiolirion Leucoj um Lilium Montbretia Muscari Narcissus Nerine Orchis Ornithogalum Oxalis l’a‘onia l’aneratium l’uschliinia Ranunculus Schizostylis Seilla Sparaxis Sternbergia 'I‘igridia Trillium Triteleia 'l‘ritonia Tropa‘olum Tulipa Yalotta Zephyranthes Zygadenus C I I A 1’ T Ii R VI i\lil‘lNli ANI) ROCK. GARDENS IN the culture of alpine plants, the first consideration is that much difference exists among them as regards size and vigour. \\"e have, on the one hand, a number of plants that merely require to be sown or planted in the roughest way to flourish—~the common Arabis and ;\ubrietia, for example ; but, on the other, there are many kinds, like Gentiana verna, and the l’rimulas of the high Alps, which we rarely see in good health in gardens. It is as to the less vigorous species that advice is chiefly required. Nearly all the misfortunes which these little plants have met with in our gardens are due to a false conception of what a rock-garden ought to be, and of what the alpine plant requires. It is too often thought they will do best in our gardens if merely elevated on tiny heaps of stones and brick rubbish. such as we frequently see piled together and dignified by the name of “rockwork.” Mountains are often “bare," and cliffs are usually devoid of soil; but we must not conclude that the choice jewellery of plant life scattered over the ribs of the mountain lives upon little more than the air and the melting snow! \Vhere else can we find such a depth of stony soil as on the ridges of (/t'YI/v'x flanking some great glacier, stained with tufts of crimson Rockfoil? Can we gauge the depth of that chink from which peep tufts of the beautiful little ‘-\ndrosace helvetica? No; for ages it has gathered the crumbling grit, into which the roots enter so far that nothing we carry can tig them out. ;\nd if we find plants growing apparently from mer‘ cracks without soil, even then the roots simply search farther into the heart of the tlaky rock. so that they are safer from want of moisture than in the best soil. ALP/AYE JAY) A‘OC/x' (IL-1 [CD/CAN 0 Lu I met on the Alps with plants not more than an inch hio'h firmly rooted in crevices of slaty rock. By knocking away the sides _ LI‘INE l’Ii/)\\lil\’j _\’l' llHMlC. from bits of projecting rock, I laid the roots quite bare, and found them radiating in all directions against a flat rock, some of the largest being more than a yard long. Even smaller plants descend 94 YHE ENGLISH FLOII’E/i’ GA/i’DEzV quite as deep or even deeper, though it is rare to find the texture and position of the rock such as will admit of tracing them. It is true we occasionally find in fields of flat hard rock hollows in which moss and leaves have gathered, and where, in a depression of the surface, without an outlet of any kind, plants grow freely enough; but in droughts they are just as liable to suffer from want of water as they would be in our plains. On level or sloping spots of ground in the Alps the earth is of great depth, and if it is not all earth in the common sense of the word, it is more suitable to the plants than what we commonly understand by that term. Stones of all sizes broken up with the soil, sand, and grit, prevent evaporation ; the roots lap round them and follow them deep down. In such positions they never suffer from want of moisture. It must be remembered that the continual degradation of the rocks effected by frost, snow, and heavy rains in summer serves to“ earth up,” so to speak, many alpine plants. In numbers of gardens an attempt at “ rockwork ” has been made; but the result is often ridiculous, not because it is puny when compared with Nature’s work, but because it is generally so arranged that rock—plants cannot exist upon it. The idea of rock— work first arose from a desire to imitate those natural croppings- out of rocks which are often half covered with dwarf mountain plants. The conditions which surround these are rarely taken into account by those who make rock—gardens. In moist districts, where rains keep porous stone in a humid state, this straight—sided rockwork may support a few plants ; but in the larger portion of the British Isles it is useless and ugly. It is not alone because they love the mountain air that the Gentians and such plants prefer it, but because the great elevation is unsuitable to coarser vegetation, and the alpine plants have it all to themselves. Take a patch of Silene acaulis, by which the summits of some of our highest mountains are sheeted over with rosy crimson, and plant it 2000 feet lower down in suitable soil, keeping it moist and free from weeds, and it will grow well ; but leave it to Nature, and the strong herbs will soon cover it, excluding the light and killing it. Although hundreds of alpine flowers may be grown without a particle of rock near them, yet the slight elevation given by stone is congenial to numbers of the rarest kinds. The effect of a well— made rock-garden is pretty in garden scenery. It furnishes a home for many native and other plants which may not safely be put in among tall flowers in borders; and it is important that the most essential principles to be borne in mind when making it should be stated. The usual mistake is that of not providing a feeding-place for the roots of the plants. On ordinary rockwork even the coarsest British weeds cannot find a resting—place because there is no body .-1 L PINE A ND 16 OCA‘ GA [CDEA-ZS‘ 9 5 of soil for the roots to penetrate and find nourishment sufficient to keep the plant fresh in all weathers. POSITION 1:01: THE ROCK-GAluncx—Jl‘hc rock-garden should never be near walls; never very near a house; never, if possible, within view of formal surroundings of any kind. It should be in an open situation. No efforts should be spared to make all the surround- ings, and every point visible from the rockwork, as graceful and natural as they can be made. The part of the gardens around the rockwork should be picturesque, if pos— sible, and, in any case, be a quiet open spot with as few jar— ring points as may be. No tree should be in the rock-garden; hence a site should not be selected where it would be necessary to remove favourite trees. The roots of trees would find their way into the masses of good soil for the alpine flowers and soon exhaust them. PASSAGE 1x ROCK-GARDEN. Besides, as these flowers are usually found on treeless wastes, it is best not to place them in shaded places. As regards the stone to be used, sandstone or millstone grit would perhaps be the best; but it is seldom that a Choice can be made, and almost any kind of stone will do, from Kentish rag to limestone: soft and slaty kinds and others liable to crumble away should be avoided, as also should magnesian limestone. The stone of the neighbourhood should be adopted for economy’s sake, if for no other reason. \Yherever the natural rock crops out, it is sheer waste to create artificial rockwork instead of embellishing that which naturally occurs. In many cases nothing would be necessary but to clear the ground, and add here and there a few loads of good soil, with broken stones to prevent evaporation, the natural crevices and crests being planted where possible. Cliffs or banks of chalk, as well as all kinds of rock, should be taken advantage of in this way: many plants, like the dwarf Harebells and Rock Roses, thrive in such places. No burrs, clinkers, vitrified matter, portions of old arches ()6 '/'///:‘ /:L\'(//,/.S‘// /v‘/.()ll'/:‘/\’ (I'A-I/i’N/LV and pillars, broken—nosed statues, ete.‘ should ever be seen in a garden Ol‘ alpine flowers. Never let any part ol~ the rock—garden appear as if it had been shot out of a cart. The rocks should all have. their bases buried in the ground, and the seams should not be visible; wherever a vertical or oblique seam occurs, it should be crammed with earth, and the plants put in with the earth will quield)’ hide the seam. llorixontal fissures should li\‘|'\l ‘\ \ll‘|\l \ i|\ \lil.\l \ll'lN be axoided as mueli as possible. No \‘gieuum should exist beneath the surlaee ol‘ the soil or surlaee-stones. The broken stone and grit should be. so disposed that tlieie are no hollows, Myriads ol~ alpine plants lia\e been destroyed li’oin the want ol obser\'ing this pie (alllioil, the open t‘le‘i'it‘es and loose soil allowing; the tli'_\' air to destroy the alpine plants in a \ery short time, and so one otten sees what was meant tor a “roeltery” emered with weeds and brambles, and l‘orgotten l ALP/J75 ATV!) [€0le GARDEfi'S 97 In all cases where elevations of any kind are desired, the true way is to obtain them by a mass of soil suitable to the plants, putting a “ rock ” in here and there as the work proceeds; fre— quently it would be desirable to make these mounds of earth with— out any strata. The wrong and usual way is to get the elevation by piling up ugly masses of rock. No very formal walk—that is to say, no walk with regularly- trimmed edges—should come near the rock—garden. This need not prevent the presence of good walks through or near it, as, by allow- ing the edges of the walk to be a little irregular and stony, and by encouraging Stonecrops, Rockfoils, and other little plants to crawl into the walk at will, a pretty margin will result. There is no surface of this kind that may not be thus adorned. Violets, Ferns, \‘I‘El’5 I.\' A GARDEN AT (‘UXI‘ZYHURS’II Forget-me—nots, will do in the shadier parts, and the Stonecrops and many others will thrive in the full sun. The whole of the surface of the alpine garden should be covered with plants, except a few projecting points, as far as possible. In moist districts, Erinus and the Balearic Sandwort will grow on the face of the rocks : and quite upright faces of rock will grow a variety of plants. Regular steps should never be in or near the rock-garden. Steps may be made quite irregular, and even beautiful, with violets and other small plants jutting from every crevice. No cement should be used. In cases where the simplest type of rock-garden only is attempted, and where there are no steps or rude walks in the rock—garden, the very fringes of the gravel walks may be gracefully enlivened by allowing such plants as the dwarfer Stonecrops to become established in them. The alpine Toadflax is never more beautiful than when H ()3 '/'///:' l:‘-\/'(,'/l/S// ["/,()Il'/§/\' (IX-UC/UEA' self-sown in a gravel walk. A rock-garden so made that its minia- ture cliffs overhang is useless for alpine vegetation; and all but such wall—loving plants as Corydalis lutea soon (lie on it. The tendency to make it with overhanging “peaks” is often seen in the cement rock-gardens now common. SOIL—The great majority of alpine plants thrive best in deep i -// (2/ , ”all // t , // ll / i r t 1/; \|l\l)\ \llll~ \ll \\ \ll (ll ||l\'l\'\tl (H\ll\‘ll‘ \\llll lit‘tlxltlll \\l> lll\'\,\. soil. In it they can root tleeply, and when once rootetl they will not sutler troin drought, from whieh they woulil quickly perish it plantetl in the usual way. 'l‘hree teet tleep is not too much tor most species, and in nearly all cases it is a gootl plan to haye plenty ot broken santlstone or grit llllXt‘tl with the soil. 4\ny tree loam, with plenty ot‘santl, ln'oken grit, etc. will suit most alpine plants. lhit peat is retluiretl liy some, as. tor e\aniple, \arious small antl lirilliant rock—plants like the i\len/:iesia. 'l‘i‘illiuin, t‘ypiipetliuin, Spigelia, and a A L PAVE JAY) lx’OC/f- 01/60/21“? 99 number of other mountain and bog plants. Hence, though the general soil may be of the material above described, it will be desirable to have a few masses of peat here and there. This is better than forming all the ground of good loam, and then digging holes for the reception of small masses of peat. The soil of some portions might also be chalky or calcareous, for the sake of plants that are known to thrive best on such formations, like the Milkworts, the Bee Orchis. and Rhododendron Cbamzecistus. Any other varieties of soil required by particular kinds can be given as they are planted. "73v A ROCK-GARDEN AT \\’I.\'DER.\II£RIC. It is not well to associate a small lakelet or pond with the rock— garden, as is frequently done. If a picturesque piece of water can be seen from the rock-garden, well and good ; but water should not, as a rule, be closely associated with it. Hence, in places of limited extent it should not be thought of at all. If a pretty streamlet comes near the rock-garden, so much the better. In the planting of every kind of rock—garden, it should be remembered that all the surface should be planted. Not alone on slopes, or favourable ledges, or chinks, or miniature valleys, should we see this exquisite plant-life. Numbers of rare mountain species 100 THE ENGLISH FLOIVEA’ GARDEZV will thrive on the less-trodden parts of footways; others, like the two-flowered Violet, seem to thrive best in the fissures between steps ; many dwarf succulents delight in gravel and the hardest soil. In cultivating the very rarest and most minute alpine plants, the stony, or partially stony, surface is to be preferred. Full exposure is necessary for very minute plants, and stones are useful in preventing evaporation from their roots, Few have much idea of the number of alpine plants that may be grown on fully-exposed ordinary ground. But some kinds require care, and there are usually new kinds coming in, which, even if vigorous, should be kept apart for a time. Therefore, where the culture of alpine plants is entered into with zest, there ought to be a sort of nursery spot on which to grow the most delicate and rare Clllil)l).\|{ PINK, SAXII’RAGIC, AND FICRNS, 0N COTTAGE “'AIJ. AT MELLS. kinds. It should be fully exposed, and sufficiently elevated to secure perfect drainage. A mossy wall, or an old ruin, would give a place for many rock- plants which no specially—prepared situation could rival. Those who have observed how alpine plants grow on stony ground must have noticed in what arid places many llourishvsfine plants springing from a Chink in a boulder. They are often stunted and small in such places, but are always more free—flowering and long-lived than when. growing upon the ground. Now, numbers of alpine plants perish if planted in the ordinary soil of our gardens. This results from over- moisture in winter, the plants being more susceptible of injury when growth is induced in our winters. But if many of these delicate plants are placed where their roots dry in winter, they may be kept in perfect health. Many plants from countries a little farther south than our own, and from alpine regions, may find on walls, rocks, and ruins that dwarf, sturdy growth and dryness in winter which go to form the conditions that make them at home in our climate. There slip/AYE JAY) AWE/C (7.-1/\’/>/{.\i\' 101 are many alpine plants now cultivated with difficulty in frames that may be «rrown 0n walls with ease! 5 'l‘he hest way tn establish plants on walls is by seed. The ilULNleluvjilx", l.l<., \I I,r\r\ll’(ll\‘l ll\lil,. Cheddar l’ink, fer example grows on walls at Oxford much better than I haye eyer linuwn it do un reekwnrk or NH level ground. A few \eed\ ut‘ this plant, sown in an earthy Chink, and cmered with a dust mt~ tine wil. would soon take mot, living“ for years in fine sturdy tufts. 102 7'11]? IL‘iVG/JSH I’LOII’E/i’ (IX-l/t’IUCiV “here no old walls exist, by building a rough stone wall, and packing the intervals as firmly as possible with loam, a host of rock— plants may be grown. The wall affords the kind of nutriment they require. To many species the wall would prove a more congenial home than any but the best-constructed rock-garden. ALPINE PLANTS 1N GkOUl‘s.——-A great number of alpine flowers will do perfectly well on level ground in our cool climate, if they are not overrun by coarser plants. “here there are natural rocks or good artificial ones it is best to plant them properly; but people ;\l,l‘l\l’. GARIHVN 0N l.l‘\'l7,l. (Llit‘l‘Nll \\'ll‘ll til‘Nl‘lANl-ZLLK lX LARGE GRUl‘l‘ \Fltil lCl'~ 'l'U t;l\l7 St‘t\lil‘.\. who are particular would often be better without artificial rockwork if they wished to grow these plants in simpler ways. There is not the slightest occasion to have what is called “rockwork” for these tlowers. 1 do not speak only of things like the beautiful tientianella. which for many years has been grown in our gardens, but of the Rockfoils, the Stonccrops‘ and the true alpine plants in great numbers. 'l‘hen. for the sake of securing the benefits of the refreshing rains. it would often be advisabkx in the south of l‘ingland at least‘ to avoid l1)" ‘lll‘lY Dockets hitherto built for rock tlowers. 'l‘he illustra— tion of tientians is that of a little alpine garden, made in quite a level place in the worst possible soil for growing the plant, the hot ‘4LPIIVE AND ROCK GARDENS 103 Bagshot sand, where the soil is always fit for working after heavy rain, but in hot summer is almost like ashes. By making the soil rather deep and by burying a few stones among the plants to prevent evaporation, this flower, which loves a clay or a rich loamy soil, grew well, as the picture, which is engraved from a photograph, shows. The next point which I have long insisted on is the great superiority of the natural grouping over the botanical or labelled style of little single specimens of a great number of plants. In this stretch of bed, in the ordinary way, there would be fifty or more plants—but nothing pretty for those who have ever seen the beautiful mountain gardens. Many rightly contend that, in a sense, Nature includes all, and that therefore the term “natural” may be mis- applied. But the term “natural” is a perfectly just one when used in the sense of Nature’s own way of arranging flowers as opposed to the lines, circles, and other set patterns so commonly hitherto followed by man. By adopting a bold and natural grouping we could get all the colour of “bedding” without a trace of formality. But most gardeners find it difficult to group in this natural way—we have all been so used to setting things out in formal lines. This is a difficulty felt by the most artistic, but a little attention to natural objects will help us to get away from set patterns, and let things intermingle here and there and run into each other to form groups such as we may see among the rocks by alpine paths. After a little time the plants themselves begin to help us by growing irregularly. An excellent way is, if a number of plants are set out too formally —as in most cases they are—to pull up a number here and there after the whole are set. Plants for Rock—Gardens These are as follows. \Vhere the name of a large and varied family is given, as in Phlox, Iris, Rhododendron, Pentstemon, Salix, Antirrhinum, it is the alpine, or dwarf mountain kinds, that are meant. Acaena . . . . XV. Zea/and Bur. Arabis . . . . Rock Cress. Acantholimon . Prick/y T/zrg'fz‘. Arenaria . . . Sandworl. Achillea . . , .llz'lfoz'l. Armeria . . . T/zrzft. Acis. Asperula . . . Woodrnfif .Ethionema . . Lehman Candytujl Aster . . . . 51077110”. Alyssum . . . Jflzduron‘. Astragalus . . iii/£1 Vela/1. Andromeda. Aubrietia . . . Pzzrflle Rat/1’ Cress. Androsace. Begonia . . . Elep/zant’s-ear. Anemone . . . I/Vz'na’flowcr. Bellis . . . . Daisy. Antennaria . . C na’wem’. Bryanthus. Anthyllis , , . Kidney Vera/z. Bulbocodium . . Sflrz'ng [Meadow Antirrhinum . . Snafla’ragon. Saflron. Aquilegia. . . Colnméz'ne. Calandrinia . . RockPnrslane. I04 T111? ENGLISII FLOW/ER GARDEN Fla/11‘s for Rod‘-Gardcm-#C0ntinued Campan ula Boll—flmcrcr I sopyrum. Cardamine Bil/(2r C rays. Jasione .S'lza‘jfs-ld/ Sal/2127215. Centaurea . Cun‘mz/y. Jeffersoniu Twill-lay”. Cerastium . JIUIIJ‘U—(YU‘, Clzz'c‘lu Leiophyllum Sam! 41/: Vr/lv. zuum’. Leontopodium [,z‘mz’sZ/me. Cheimnthus I I 'al/jlumv'. Leucanthemum 0.120% Dally. Chimaphila Il'z'lzz‘ng‘lwlz. Leucojum . .S'mmy’la/I‘c. Colchicum Jlnuz’mu Sty/'11)”. Linm‘ia ’Ibmzylar. Convolvulus lfz'mlwum’. Linnma Twill-flown: Cornus. Cor/1M. Linum . Flam. Coronilla Crow/z Vail/1. Lithospermum Cromwell. Corydalis lv‘zmzcwnn‘. Loiseleuria Trailing A salad. Crocus. Lotus lfz'm”.\‘:/2ml Tnfm'l. Cyclamen. Lychnis Cal/11612)”. Cypripedium . Lady's Sli/fifu’r. Lycopodium Club Jluxs. Daphne. Lysimachia Lonscs/rM‘. Dianthus l’z'nl‘. Mazus. Diapensia. Meconopsis l’nflflv'zuon‘. Dielytm Lyra—flower. Menziesia . Hall/1. Diotis . . Sm Calla/mused. Mertensia . 511100171 Lung-wort Dodecatheon . All/Mimi] Onyx/1:15. Muscari Grape ffllaa‘nflz. Draba . IV/n'llnn'l Grass. Myosotis Jimmy-car. Dracocephalum 1);?zgmz’s-lmm’. Narcissus . [Mflba’ifi Dryas JIM/”lain ATE/1x. Nierembergia C upflower. Epigma Jlajflmcw: Nertem Fruiting Durk- El'ica film/l1. 706ml. Erigeron Flaw-lama (Enothera . Ezwzz'ng I’rz’mroxv. Erinus. Omphalodes Cray/m: Erodium Hcrmz’an'll. Ononis . Rest [firl‘rouu Erpetion .S'purlysx Ir’inln‘. Onosma Goldcndrzy). Erysimum. Ophrys 072711}! Erythronium . l)og"_\‘-/(m//1 I'z'nlvf. Orchis. Ficarizl. P17570021. Orobus [filler INK/1. Gulanthus . Sim-ardnyfi. Oxalis I Vow! Sorrel. Gaultheria l’ar/r/(lqz' [fur/3'. Oxytropis. (lenista lfmum. Papzu'cr [Hy/yr. Gentianu Gaul/(m. Pamdisiu St. Bruno’s Lily. Geranium . ('7'am".v-lu'll. Parnassiu . 077153QfPtIf/NISSII‘V- Globularia (flu/w lhulgr. l’emstemon. Gypsophilu. l’ctmcnllis [\‘m‘l' Emu/)2 Iledyszu‘um . 81/.le Clut'c‘r. l’hlox. Helianthcmum Sm; A‘nxv. l‘olcmnnium jtIc‘t’l’iY-Alllldt‘l‘. I’l Clichrysum li‘lc‘l‘lr[vi/1g. l‘olygula J/I'M‘fi W‘I‘. Hellcborus (‘l/r/lv/unu lx‘nxt‘. Polygonum lCIInfzuvnl. Hippocrepis llwm‘x/mv I'd/(l1. l‘otemilla . (‘I‘Ilqlhjfi’ll liottonia . [I'd/(‘2‘ I'I'ulvl. l’rimula Fri/”raw. Houstoniu. l‘runclln fill/71ml- l‘Iutchinsia. l‘uschkiniu Sir/[VJ b‘qm'll. Hyucinthus Ill/(In'nl/I. l‘yrolu _ II'I‘Izlny'ra'II. lbcris ('(I/nl1'fzg/X l‘yxidzmtlu‘m . Pint-barn)! Ionopsidium I'fulu/ Chum. [fan/(1'. Iris . lv‘lag: Rununculus Craig/bot Rhcxia . Rhododendron. Sagina . Salix Sanguinai‘ia Santolina Saponai‘ia . Sa\ifi‘aga St‘illil Scnicllai'ia Scdum . Sempcrvivnm Scnu‘io Silcnc Smilacina. Soldanclla Spigclia Statice . :1 l, P] A715 1)c‘c‘}' Gl‘tm‘a‘. [Tar/n orf. [PW/(mu RAW/12ml. lanuvza’cr Col/nu. Snafu on“. A‘UL‘Xy'i’IZ _\‘(/z/z'//. 5171/ A 1 1/7. N/fllh‘t‘l‘n/k Hairy/(2‘11 (Minna/5M. (tiff/[fit [9/115 Al/nn/z-a'nrf. [NW/z Gram; 51V? [.(I‘T't‘lldlt‘l'. A A?) A’ O C If GA [CDEA'S Thalictrum 'I‘hlaspi T liym us Tricntalis Trillium 'I‘ritclcia 'I‘ropa‘olum 'I‘nlipa 'l‘unica. Yaccinium Veronica Yosicaria \‘icia \‘iola \Yaldstcinia. Zcphyranthes . 105 Allan/mu li’m: [faxfm'd Cum: 77(1'1m’. C/zzi‘l‘fuvm’ H VII/(‘1‘- Inn‘s/z. Ime’ /.//_1’. Tri/z/n‘ ]./‘/_1'. (inn/1‘11 Alix/[H'- fix/m. Viv/If. />’/‘//2z‘;7;1'. .\/7¢‘L‘(IZZL"t‘//. 1)’/(I(I’(/¢‘I‘—j5(>(/. ’IL‘fL.//. I Viv/Hf. th/zyr-flnwcr. References to above will be found in the alphabetical part of the work. CHAPTER VII FLOWERING SIIRUBS AND TREES IF one-tenth the trouble wasted on “carpet—bedding” plants and other fleeting and costly rubbish had been spent on flowering shrubs, our gardens would be all the better for it. There are no plants so much neglected as flowering shrubs. Even when planted they are rarely well treated, owing to the “traditions” of what is called the shrubbery. The common way is to dig the shrubbery every winter. This is often carried out without giving the soil any manure, and much harm is done by mutilating the roots of the shrubs. The labour and time wasted in this way, if devoted tothe proper culture of a portion of the ground each year, would make our gardens delightful indeed. Many shrubs, as fair as any flower requiring the shelter of glass, have been introduced into this country ; but for the most part they have been destroyed by the muddle and bad cultivation of the shrubbery. The system is too “ scratchy ” to permit a beautiful group of hardy shrubs say evergreen Barberries—to receive as much care as is given to plants in pots. The idea of the common shrubbery as the home for beautiful shrubs is so rooted in the popular mind that it is almost hopeless to expect much change for the better. The true way is to depart wholly from the idea of the shubbery as a mass of mixed shrubs. Beautiful families like Spirzea may be grouped by themselves. Each family or plant should have a separate place free from the all- devouring Privet and Laurel. Each part of the shrubbery should have a character of its own. This may easily be given to it by grouping instead of the usual mixture, which ends in the starvation of the choice kinds. \Ve do not allow stove and greenhouse plants to be choked in this way. No plants are more worthy of a distinct place and of fair care than many enumerated at the end of this chapter. Low flowering trees, like Ilawthorns, group admirably on the turf; the finer kinds of flowering shrub should be planted in FLOU'EA‘IA’G SHRUBS AIVD TREES 107 beds. The shrubbery itself need no longer be a dark mass, but light and shade may play in it, its varied life be well shown, and the habit and form of each kind may be seen. The‘ bushes themselves will do what is needful, if they have a Chance, and if coarse things like Laurels and Privet are kept out of the shrubbery. Plants of high quality like the finer varieties of Lilac deserve to be well grown. Any one who thinks how much less trouble is Given by hardy plants, with their roots in the soil, than by pot plants, will not grudge a little attention to the outdoor things, but will consider a garden of beautiful shrubs as a conservatory in the open air. No kind of flower gardening is more delightful or enduring. \Ve have often to rearrange vigorous herbaceous plants, and constantly to work with the lovable Carnation, but Snowdrop Trees and Tree Paeonies give us no trouble. I am so convinced of the supreme value of the whole race of flowering trees, including our hardy fruit trees, that in my garden at Gravetye I planted an orchard close to the house, associating with the fruit trees other flowering shrubs of the same natural order. I did this against the advice of the wisest landscape- gardener I ever knew, Robert Marnock, for I was sure that nothing 108 THE EzVG/JSH FLOIVEA’ GARDEA/ else I could put there would in the end be so beautiful. But when he saw the planting done he admitted it was the best way—for posterity. All planting is for posterity! It is not only flowers that stiffer from being stuck in lines and patterns; our beautiful flowering shrubs are injured in the same way. The Rhododendron and the Azalea, and what are commonly called American plants, are often put in such close masses that their forms cannot be seen. “’0 may get the flowers, to some extent, but they are not so enjoyable as when the plants, placed in pictur- esque and open ways, are allowed to show their individual forms. There is not the slightest reason why we should not have all the force of colour, too, because it is quite possible to have a number of beautiful Rhododendrons and other flowering shrubs together, without putting them in the serried formal mass in which they are usually seen. “There is one feature in our parks and gardens which requires thorough reform, and that is the shrubberies with their miserable fringe of earth in which nothing but poor bedding plants will grow, and these badly. Parks and gardens are too often designed to look pretty on paper, the shrubberies and the beds forming harmonious combinations of flowing curves in the plan. The ground plan of a garden has no business to look pretty, and flowing curves on paper are almost certain to be tame and ugly curves when carried out in walks and beds. Gardens should be designed and staked out on the ground they are to occupy—not drawn on paper and then transferred to the ground. The main difference between real mediteval building and modern imitations of it is, that the old work was staked out on the ground from a rough sketch and the details filled in as the work pro- ceeded; whereas the modern work always fails in picturesque effect because it always looks like a built drawing. Our gardens have exactly the same fault—the shrubberies never look right ; there is about them an utter absence of change, of variety, and of surprises. There are opportunities now for persons laying out new gardens to boldly go in fora new style of shrubbery, and to do away with the great belts of shrubs which wind along the walks. They might likewise abolish all evergreens of the beehive-shaped type, and plant instead groups and masses. Leave alleys and glades rtnming in amongst the trees—here giving a glimpse of distance : there narrowing and passing out of sight. “ All that is required is that people shall avoid doing as their neighbours do, and strike out new paths for themselves. In things involving such a multitude of details and varieties as gardening there is not one right way, but a great many right ways, and a great many wrong ones ; one of the worst ways is that of making all gardens consist of the same features and every hundred yards of a garden like every other hundred yards. The shrubbery may itself be made a fair garden instead of the museum of crowded half—dead trees and shrubs it usually is?! J. l). “ The hardy Azaleas of the Ameriean raees are very popular, but few know the value of the white Indian Azalea for the open garden over a large area in the south of England. Few plants give so little trouble when once established, and even though the late frosts may now and again spoil the beauty of the flowers. yet in the intervening years it is something to be grateful for. l have before this called attention to its habit of growth when planted out and left alone, not much more than three feet or four feet in height, dense—growing and spreading. The engraving shows a bush over ten feet across. with a shadow thrown over the upper part by a tree of Magnolia which grows at the side. 19/.OII'E/C/A't/ Ell/((795 JAY/l TREES 109 “ This. perhaps“ may give some idea of the position it occupies and apparently is satisfied with, namely, shelter from cold winds and from too fierce a sun on the flowers or on the roots. Any one who intends to plant this Azalea should remember that it flowers naturally at a time when there may still be late frosts and cold winds hovering about. and that it would be a mistaken kindness to choose l'ill‘Ji‘Hlll'lelh‘HV f}_'\l\’lil-._\' _\T BURTON, rllli\llll\'li. any place. such as under a south wall. which would tend to make the blossoms open earlier in the >Cii>t)ll. \\'e have some plants under a north wall which do admirably, but they seem to like association with other things and not to be spotted out by themselves in the open. The Variety which does best here is the old typical white. Overgrown plants of other colours from the greenhouse have been warned out sometimes. but they do not seem so happy or produce so good an effect." —C, R. SCRASli-IHCKLNS, \V \‘l \. (1)4vl [U l‘\|, \ I Hum}: FLOW'ERING SHRUBS AND TREES III Principal Families (3f Flowering Trees and S/zrubs Hardy in E nglz’s/i Gardens Abelia. fEsculus Akebia. Aloysia Amelanchier -. Amygdalus Andromeda. Aralia . Arbutus Arctostaphylos Asimina Azalea. Azara. Bambusa . Berberis Berberidopsis. Bignonia . Buddleia Calycanthus Horse C lzestnat. Sweet Verbena. Snowy Mespilus. Almond Angelica Tree. Strawberry Tree. Bearberry. Virginian Papaw. Bamboo. Barberry. Coral Barberry. T rumpet-flower. Orange Ball. Carolina A llspice. Camellia (in Southern Counties). Caragana . Catalpa. Ceanothus. Cerasus Cercis . . Chimonanthus Chionanthus . Cladrastis . Clematis. Clethra Colletia Colutea Comptonia Cornus. Corylopsis. Cotoneaster Crataegus . Cydonia Cytisus. Daphne. Desfontainea. Desmodium Deutzia Dimorphanthus. Drimys Edwardsia Embothrium . Erica Escallonia . Eucryphia . Euonymus Siberia Pea Tree. flue Bus/z. C lzerry Tree. judas Tree. japan A llspice. Fringe Tree. Yellow lVood. Pepper Bus/z. A nc/zor Bus/z. Bladder Senna. Sweet Fern Bus/z. Dog PVood. japanese Hazel. Berry Box. J! a y. Quince. Broom. T ick T refoil. Sno w—flower. W intefs Bark. xVew Zealana’ Laburnum. Fire Bus/z. Heat/z. C/iilian Gum Box. Brus/zy‘lower. Sflindle Tree. Exochorda Fabiana Forsythia . F othergilla. Garrya. Gaultheria. Genista Gleditschia Gordonia . Helesia Hamamelis Hibiscus Hypericum Hydrangea. lllicium Indigofera . Itea . Jamesia. Jasminum . Kalmia Kerria . Koelreulteri‘a. Laburnum. Lardizabala. Laurus . Ledum . Leiophyllum . Lespedeza . Leycesteria Ligustrum . Liriodendron . Lonicera Lupinus Magnolia . Mahonia Malus . Mespilus Myrica . Myrtus . N uttalia Olearia Ononis. Ornus . Ozothamnus. Paulownia. Pavia Periploca . Pernettya . Pearl Bus/z. False Heal/1. Golden Bells. A merican Bilberry. Broom. Honey Locust. Loblolly Bay. Snowdrop Tree. IVitc/z Hazel. Sbrubby ll/allow. St. folin’s Wort. Star Aniseed. Indigo Plant. Virginian Willow. jasmine. .11 ountain Laurel. few’s J! allow. Golden Rain. Laurel. Labrador Tea Plant. Sand Ellyrtle. Bus/z Clover. Himalayan Honey- sucble. Privet. T ulzp Tree. Honeysuckle. Tree Lufline. Lily Tree. Evergreen Bar- berry. A Able. lWedlar. Sweet Gale. zllyrtle. Osoberry Tree. Australian Star Bus/i. Rest Harrow. Flowering A slz. Buckeye. Syrian Sil/e Vine. Prickly Heat/z. \ / ’I'I'Hcf/va/ 1 inn/711‘s l‘hilndelplius l’ltlomis l’iptuntlius l’otentilln l‘runus. l’terostyrnx; l’unicn . l’yrus liztpliiolepis Rhododendron. thodorzi Rliodotypos RllX‘S Roliiniii Rosa Rulius SninlJucus . Solnnum THE ENGLISH leUU'E/t‘ ([A/x’lllfll" ofl3/u'rutv'z'21g‘ I)?” and 570715.: [la/'afr 1’11 ling/1371 (jara’g/M Continued J/mfl‘ Ora/(er. fun/ya/t‘m Nag}: .\3‘/>a/// Lani/rum”. NAM/M: 1' (Mane/2W. [VI/m, .V/m“ Nam- sz, HIM/arr. /)(’//l::'\’7'rI//(I/t'. l’caz'. C/z/mxvx Hard/mm]. Canal/fan [Mealt— (Il'l/zI/l‘fl/l. ”71/1? frru'x -l/a//n:u. /"/u:t xvi/(gt ‘zzz‘z‘a/M [Uri/(AV! / ‘H't'. /\l(’.\‘z'. Frail/Mt: /§/a’r)'. [ltl/tI/(l Y‘I‘z't'. Sopltm‘zt Spurtium Spirgczt . Stupliylezt . Stnuntonin. Stuartizt. Styrztx Syringu 'l‘nmnrix ’l‘ecomn 'l‘ilin Flex \‘eronicu Viburnum . \‘irg'ilizt Vitex \'itis \\'eig‘elz1 \\'ist;1ri;1 Xuntlioceru S l’a‘g‘ua’a Tn“; /\’1/.v// lv’nwm. .V/II‘II/I/{r ll/t‘aa’uru .V'ft '< 't /. Ill/(Itflft‘I‘ A\‘I//. .\‘/(l/‘rlll‘—_\‘/{I‘I{{l’. lj/(It‘. 'llI/I/al'I'A‘K‘. 7)'1(//z/7t'/:/1’(t:tw: Lima. (imavc. AVH‘H/I/g 1' Sf» u '1 in 't W (HIV/(1111' [\‘UM'. l .(‘//Uft’ II‘UUII]. C/Iaxz‘u Tran I'D/u, [fax/z H(’/I¢:1’.\‘1/{/{/<‘. G/‘aficjlazucr. Some of the evergreens in this list are killed or greatly injured in severe winters. and should be planted but little in cold inland districts or in llCLl\'}‘ soils, CHAPTER VIII ANNLAL AND DIENNIAL PLANTS FOR 'I‘lll‘? FLO\\'ICR GARDEN AXIOM; the beautiful things which “ carpet-bedding” destroyed were the good annuals and like plants which once formed such pretty III) (JI: "CHINA .\.\'lllIC\ H2 \IIU\\ING Iil'I-‘I‘ZC'I‘ OI" \\'Iil.L-(}l\’U\\'N ANNUAL PLANTS IN GARDEN. LNGRAVIZI) I‘ROM A PHOTOGRAPH. beds in the flower garden. \Yhile it is not well to depend too much on annuals or biennials, not a few are indispensable, like Stocks, where they can be grown. Some are neglected, like the Rhodanthe, grown as an open—air flower, while many are badly grown, like the I H4 7'11]? ENG/J31] /"/',()U'/:‘/\‘ (ixl/C/UQV Zinnia. Some, like the Corn—flower, Sweet Sultan, Sweet l’ea, Scabious, are charming for cutting; others are good for trellis-work ; and others for surfaces we wish to adorn with pretty climbers, such as Canary Creeper, Maurandya, .\d- lumia, Gourds, Con\‘('>l\'u— his; some are even plants of good foliage and habit. such as the. Castor-oil-plant, the llemp, the crisp Mallow, the annual \Vormwood, lndian Corn, Cotton Thistle, Blessed Thistle, Olympian Mullein. ln wet seasons and in wet northern districts annuals surprise. us by their vigour and beauty. In warmer counties, the effect of the heat may in the case of the hardy kinds be met by autumn—sowing in good rich ground. The autumn sow— ings are the best. The plants not only tlower much sooner, but, where the soil and climate suit them, they are stronger and more beauti- ful. The reason why they are so often seen in poor condition is that they are sown on hungry soil and are crowded. Concerning these, “Sal— moniceps" writes; “I haye just measured a plant to—day ,Uctober 4Q of Nemophila insignis, sown more than a year auo. It has been in >- lNll lil.l5 llUl l \ llUl'lx. flower since May, and measures now .1 feet by 3 feet to inches. lt would take a long time to count the blossoms, although they are not so large as the earlier ones. The plant grows in a new and rich border. .’\ccord— A -VNUA L A IVD [HEAR/V1.41. FLA .VTS FOR [“14 0 IVE/C GARDEN I l 5 ing to the ordinary way of sowing annuals, this single plant occupies the space which is usually allotted to a whole packet of seed.” All the grown kinds are mentioned in the alphabetical part of this work, and their cultivation is given. It would be interesting to see what a good gardener could do with annuals, considering the requirements of each kind and sowing it at the season likely to get the best and longest bloom. In nature, annuals are usually autumn sown and gather strength in the winter, no matter how small the growth. In growing a number of annuals from various countries we must remember that our winters can be faced by the hardy ones only, such as the Sweet Pea, Corn-flower, Silene, Nemophila, Viscaria, Limnanthes, Lark- spur, Poppy, and Scabious. Annuals are best in masses or groups. They are never perhaps so full of colour and beauty as on an old rich vine border. In the course of alterations the soil has often to remain unplanted for a time; and this should be taken advantage of for annuals. \Vhile some annuals may show colour for only a short season, others are among our most fragrant and beautiful plants. HALF-HARDY PLANTS TREATED AS ANNUALS.-—It is not every one who has the space or means to provide and winter a large number of tender bedding plants. No matter how favourable the situation, the keeping of a large stock involves a good deal of trouble, and takes up space that might be better occupied. But a garden may be made very gay in summer and autumn with seedlings alone, and without keeping or purchasing a single plant. In seed- lings there may be differences in habit and colour, but to many people this will be no objection ; and there are a few plants which come from seed true to the type through many generations, like Verbena venosa, one of the best and most pleasing of hardy bedding or border plants. \Ve have raised many thousands from seed, and never saw any variation. Another is Salvia patens. Like the Verbena it should be sown on a hotbed early in spring, in order to get it into early flower. Lobelias of the speciosa race come fairly true'from seed. Can anything, again, as a mixed bed be more effective than a mass of seedling Petunias? The colours are not harsh, but soft and pleasing. Seedling Verbenas make a handsome bed; and for a large bed, where the soil is good, few things are superior to the double Zinnias, which can be had in various colours, and separately if desired. Balsams, again, are not half so much used for open-air decoration as they deserve to be. Those who have only seen them starving in small pots cannot form an idea of their beauty when planted out in good open soil, away from trees. Among yellow-flowering plants, the small single form of \\I|lH l‘tl\h[l)\‘ l\|‘l\'\\|!’ \K‘ ‘vl \1tiHMH.>\\1! }\ r‘ {‘1 \\| l\ \IE.‘3111H\{\ \l «‘I(\\‘ ,\' \"\\‘ \C _~IA7.VU.~1L .4 ND BIEA'A'IA L 1”.le 1V] '5 F019 FL 0 I VE/i’ GA RDE N I I 7 Tagetes signata pumila is useful, but it is not equal to the double variety, which makes a handsome bed. For large beds or back positions in borders, the lemon and orange varieties of the African Marigold are very lasting and showy. The dwarf kinds of Agera— tum, if selected and saved with care, may be raised in a gentle heat, and, with a little management, very effective masses may be easily had in summer. The tuberous Begonias form a good feature in sheltered positions; they will display all the colours of the Pelargonium without liability to be washed out by rain, and they require no expensive preparation to keep them through the winter. Take the large family of Violas, in almost all shades of purple, yellow, and white. Now that selection and fertilisation have so much improved them, varieties may be raised in the early spring for bedding out the same summer. This applies especially to such plants as the Verbena and Pansy, Pelargonium, Pyrethrum, Salvia patens, S. argentea, Heliotrope, and Antirrhinum, which should be sown in heat in January, much as the Verbena already described; to the Petunia, Phlox Drummondi, Dianthus, Indian Pink, Ageratum, and Lobelia, which in February should be sown in pans in heat, and, if kept growing, will be ready for planting out in May. Begonias, for bedding, may be grown from seed in the same year, but are much more effective if raised during the preceding year, selected according to colour, and stored in winter ready for bedding out early in summer. F uchsias sown in January flower well in August. Of fine-foliaged plants adapted for bedding and which can be raised from seed, there are the useful Amaranthus, Cclosia, Centaurea, Cineraria maritima, and Humea. There are many other fine-leaved plants, such as Canna, Chamaepeuce, Nicotiana, Ricinus, Solanum, and \Vigandia. If we were not so accustomed to depend on cuttings stored over the winter, we could make a display with seedling plants alone. If seedling F uchsias may be grown to the flowering stage during the current year, there can be scarcely any difficulty in getting a large stock of other seedling plants for the open garden. The cleanliness of this plan would be a great gain. 'Old plants harbour through the winter the eggs of vermin always ready to eat up the collection if it is neglected for a week. But, starting with thoroughly clean houses and frames, and with seeds in early spring, the gardener could make a better fight against his many insect enemies. As regards the plants one would like to raise in this way, a point to desire is that seedsmen should select and fix distinct colours of different races of plants. It would not be difficult to select a bluish or purple Verbena which one might count on as coming pretty true from seed. We have so much relied upon cuttings and old plants, that the raising of seedlings in robust health has never had fair 118 attention. growth, and the unchecked culture that seedlings require. Y'l/E ENGLISII FLOIVE/C (/Alt’D/E/V We know that everybody raises some seeds, but few give the early thinning, the perfect exposure to light, the sturdy usually get little space and less care. T hey S\\'l-‘.l£'l‘ Std/PAN. 50/115 (y~ f/u' 11mm /-////)()}'/(I/// I'll/1117111? (y. -‘1/1/11/(1/ mm’ HAW/11h! [Va-tuna, I'In‘lmz’z'lzg' /[(({/:/I(N‘II:1’ Budd/Mg /)/(I/I/t\‘,~/i)}' f/a' [Ya-war Gan/(11 Attroclinitnn Adlumia Agel'atum Agrostennna Alonsoa Alyssnin Amaranthus var.) Alnherlma Annnobinm Anagallis Antirl'hinum Art‘totis i-\i'gemone ;\ rteniisia Bartonia Begonia lit)Cl‘l{l1:lUSl£l lh'aehyt‘onie (‘alandrinia Calceola ria Calentlnla Calliopsis Campanula (in Cannabis (‘ape Marigold tfatanant‘lie (Jelosia Celsia t‘entranthns t‘lieiranthus China Aster t‘hi‘ysanthemum L‘larkia Clintonia (‘nittus Convoh'ulus C(H‘L‘Olhih‘ t‘osniidinm Cosmos Crepis Cuphea l)atura Delphiniutn Ilianthns llitliscus Digitalis liritrivhinm Erysinnnn lirythra‘a lischscholtzia liucharidiuni liutoca l"u<‘hsia tiaillardia (iilia tilaucium tiodctia (iourtls Grasses tiypsophila lletlysarum Ilelitrln‘ysum llt‘llt‘ldlilll llt‘speris llihisrns llollyllmfli llieris lmpatiem ltlllt)l)\‘ltlllllll lpoma‘a lpomopsis lsotoma Kaulfussia Lasthenia Lavatera Leptosiphon l.eptosyne Linmanthes Linaria Linuin Loasa Lolx‘lia Impliospermum Lupin Maize (in var.) Malope Malva N l art ynia Maurandya Mesemhryam themum M ig nonette M imulus .\l irahilis M yosot i s A‘VxVUAL AND BIENA’IAL PLANTS FOA’ FLOW'EIC GARDEN I19 Nemesia N emophila Nicotiana Nigella Nolana Nycterinia CEnothera Onopordon Oxalis rosea Oxyum I’apaver Petunia Phacelia Pharbitis Phlox Platystemon Podolepis Polygonum Portulaca Pyrethrum Rhodanthe Ricinus Salpiglossis Salvia Saponaria Scabious Schizanthus Schizopetalon Senecio Silene Solanum Sorghum Specularia Sphenogyne Stenactis Stocks Sweet Peas Sweet \Villiam Tagetes Thunbergia Tropeeolum Verbascum Verbena Viola Virginia Stock Viscaria VVaitzia \Vhitlavia \Vigandia Zea Zeranthemum Zinnia S'l‘liliAMIilC'l‘ IN A DICVUNSIIIR]; GARDEN. CHAPTER IX \yA'ricnsnnc, S'I‘RICAMLIC’I‘, BOG-(IARIHCN, AND nanny 1<‘1~:1<.\‘s \VIIAT a number of unclean “duck ponds" deface our gardens! l’eople haye a mania for water. The effect of water under its best conditions pleases them so well, that they bring it near their houses, where they cannot have any of its good effects. But they have instead the filth that accumulates in stagnant water, and feel its deadly smell over what ought to be a pleasant lawn. \Vater is rarely tolerable, except in such sheets as to reflect light on the landscape. In our cold, wet climate, too, it is desirable that the vapour and more immediate effects of water—even beautiful and clean water—should be kept a little away; and since this is “ artificial " water is better entirely excluded from them. In one form, however, it is always innocuous, impossible in very small places, and that is as a streamlet or rill. This can do no harm, and may, in a garden or near it, be kept always alive with beauty by border— ing it with llowers and trailing shrubs, broken by little bits of smooth Grass. A hundred yards of a limpid chalk stream aliye with fish, such as one may see among the \\'iltshire Downs telear as a diamond on the coldest day), is better than many pretentious and costly pieces of “artificial water.” 4‘\ may bad quality of the duck ponds and, indeed, of all kinds of artificial water in gardens , is the way they llll up with mud. 'l‘he. cost of cleaning them is great. \\'here in a large park the effect of water in the distance is good, and the views picturesque, “ mudding" may be worth doing. but in IV.»ITE[\’S]DE AA?) BOG GARDEATS 121 places where the scum and the smell are the main results, and the best part of the lawn is cut up for the sake of an ugly pond, the best way is to cut a drain from it, and make it into a little garden for Rhododendrons, hardy Ferns, and Lilies. Then, at all events, we should have something into which, if a child fell, it could be picked out unhurt. Ponds and fountain basins in gardens are often a danger to young children. The brook—margin offers opportunities to lovers of hardy flowers which few situations equal. Hitherto we have used in and near such places aquatic or bog— plants only, and of these usually a very meagre selection; but the improvement of the brook-side will be most readily effected by plant- ing the banks with hardy flowers. A great num— ber of our finest herb- aceous plants. from Irises to Globe—flowers, thrive best in moist soil. Land—plants have this advantage over water ones, that we can fix their position, whereas water—plants are apt to spread, and one kind often exterminates the rest, therefore it might sometimes be better not to encourage the water vegetation, but to form little colonies of hardy flowers along the banks. The repeating of a favourite plant at intervals would spoil everything; groups of free hardy things, different in each place as one passed, would be best: Day Lilies; Phloxes, which love moisture; Irises, mainly the beardless kinds, which love wet places, and all the German Irises: Gunnera; Aster; American swamp Lilies in peaty or boggy soil: the deep rose Loosestrife: Golden Rods ; the Spider \Vort: the Compass-plants; Everlasting Peas; Monkshood; the the hardiest Flame—flowers (Tritoma the stouter kinds of Yarrow (Achillea; ' / 9 types of bar ly flowers which would grow freely near the waterside SHLOMHX'S SEAL AXI) HERB PARIS, IN COPSE l-IY S'I‘REAMLET. Coat Rues ; ,‘ : the common Lupin——these are some of many 123 TIIE ENGLISII FLOlVE/t’ (IA/(DEN apart from the plants that naturally frequent the place or.are usually placed there. With these hardy plants, too, a variety of the nobler hardy ferns such as the Struthiopteris, and the finer types of the Umbellate order (Ferula and others) would also come well. We will now consider the plants that belong naturally to such situations. VVater—plants ofnorthern and temperate regions, associated with native plants, add much beauty to a garden if they are well selected and well grown. If the soil be rich, we usually see the same monotonous vegetation all round the margin of the water, and where the bottom is of gravel, there is little vegetation, but an unbroken, ugly line of washed earth. Elsewhere water-plants ll.\l{l\\' \\'.\'l‘lil{ LILIICS. accumulate till they are an eyesore. A group of \Vater Lily is beautiful ; but \Vater Lilies lose their charm when they spread over the whole of a piece of waterv~thickening and weakening and water—fowl cannot make their way through them. No garden water, however, should be without the \Yater Lily. The Yellow \\'ater Lily (Nuphar lutea), though less beautiful, is well worthy of a place ; and so is the fine and large N. advena (a native of America), which pushes its leaves boldly above the water. The American “'hite \\'ater Lily (Nympha‘a odoratal is a noble species, and would prove quite hardy. Other kinds have been recently introduced. One of the prettiest etl'ects I ever observed was afforded by a sheet of Yillarsia nympha‘oides near a woody recess, belting round IVATEA’SIDE AN!) BOG GARDENS 123 the margin of a lake with a group of Water Lilies before it, nearer the deep water. Not rare—growing, in fact, in nearly all districts of Britain—- but beautiful and singular, is the Buckbean, with flowers fringed inside with white filaments, and with round unopened buds blushing on the top with a rosy red like an Apple-blossom. It will grow in any moist place, in a bog, or by the margin of any water. For a bold and picturesque plant there is the great Water Dock ; COLONY UF IRIS, BY BROOK-SIDE. its leaves—quite sub—tropical in size—become a fine red in autumn. It forms a grand mass of foliage on rich~rnuddy banks, and, unlike many water—plants, does not spread too much. The Reed-mace (Typha) must not be omitted. It should not be allowed too much liberty. The narrow-leaved one is more graceful than the common one (T. latifolia). Carex pendula is excellent for the margins of water, its elegant drooping spikes being quite distinct in their way. Carex paniculata forms a strong and thick stem, some— times 3 feet or 4 feet high, somewhat like a tree Fern, and it has luxuriant masses of drooping leaves: on that account it is some- [24 T11]? ENGLISII FLOU'E/C GA/i’DEJV times transferred to moist places in gardens, though these large specimens are generally difficult to remove and soon perish. The Bulrush is too distinct to be omitted, its stems sometimes attaining a height of more than 7 feet and even 8 feet; and Cyperus longus is also desirable and recalls Papyrus in flower. I’oa aquatica might also be used. Cladium Mariscus is another distinct British aquatic which is worth a place. A very long list might be made of the plants that grow in British and European water, but those which possess no distinct character or beauty of flower are useless, for it is only a selection of the best kinds that can give satisfaction. Those who have seen the flower- ing Rush (Butomus umbellatus) in blossom are not likely to omit it from a collection of water-plants. Place it not far from the margin, for it likes rich muddy soil. The common Arrow Head (Sagittaria), very frequent in England and Ireland, might be associated with this; but there is a much finer double exotic kind, which is really handsome, with white flowers resembling those of the old white Double Rocket, but larger. The Bog'Arum is a beautiful plant, and I know of nothing prettier on rich, soft, boggy ground. .It will also grow by the side of water. The well- known Lily of the Nile is hardy in some places if planted rather deep, and in nearly all may be placed out for summer; but in the south of lingland and Ireland it will not thrive except in quiet waters. The Sweet-flag will be associated with the \Yater lris (l. pseudacorus), and in wet ground a number of exotic Irises will thrive, v.3". I. sibirica, ochroleuca. graminea, and many others. The l‘ond-llower is a native of the Cape of Good Hope, and is a singularly pretty plant, hardy enough for our climate, sweet and quaintly beautiful. It frequently succeeds where there are springs that keep the water a little warmer than usual. The \\'ater \‘iolet occurs in eastern and central districts. The best example of it that 1 have. seen was on an expanse of soft mud near Lea Bridge, in lesex, where it covered the surface with a sheet of dark fresh green, and looked better than when in water, though doubtless the place my \1 CYl‘lCRL'S LONGI'S. lVATEli’SlDE AND BOG GARDENS 125 was occasionally flooded. A suitable companion for the Marsh Marigold and its varieties is the very large and showy Ranunculus Lingua, which in rich ground grows to a height of 3 feet or more. Fortunately in winter the margins of lakes and streams are not upturned by the spade, and just away from the water-line almost any vigorous and hardy flower will take care of itself. The Globe- flowers alone would form beautiful effects and endure as long as the Grass. Near the various Irises that love the waterside might be planted those that thrive in moist ground, including the most beautiful kinds. It would require a long list to enumerate all the plants, apart from the aquatics proper, that would grow near the margin of water; but enough has been said to prove that on a strip of ground beside a stream or lake, a charming garden may be formed. The juxtaposition of plants naturally inhabiting different situations—— water-plants, waterside plants, and land-plants thriving in moist ground—would prevent a general admixture of the whole. Distinct effects could be obtained from the beauty of the flowers close at hand; and from that of the more conspicuous kinds at a distance, or from the other side of a stream or lakelet. THE BOG—GARDEN is a home for the numerous children of the wild that will not thrive on our harsh, bare, and dry garden borders, but must be cushioned on moss, and associated with their own relatives in moist peat soil. Many beautiful plants, like the Wild Gentian and Creeping Harebell, grow on our own bogs and marshes, much as these are now encroached upon. But even those acquainted with the beauty of the plants of our own bogs have, as a rule, but a feeble notion of the multitude of charming plants, natives of northern and temperate countries, whose home is the open marsh or boggy wood. In our own country, we have been so long encroaching upon the bogs and wastes that some of us come to regard bogs and wastes as exceptional tracts all over the world. But when one travels in new countries in northern climes, one soon learns what a vast extent of the world’s surface was once covered with bogs. In North America, even by the margins of the railways, one sees, day after day, the vivid blooms of the Cardinal-flower springing erect from the wet peaty hollows ; and far under the shady woods stretch the black bog pools, the ground between being so shaky that you move a few steps with difficulty. One wonders how the trees exist with their roots in such a bath. And where the forest vegetation disappears, the Pitcher—plant (Sarracenia), Golden Club (Orontium), Water Arum (Calla palustris), and a host of other handsome and interesting bog— plants cover the ground for hundreds of acres, with perhaps an occasional slender bush of Laurel Magnolia (Magnolia glauca) 126 77/75 ErrVCIJS/l FLOU'E/i’ (Ll/CDEA' among them. In some parts of Canada, where the painfully long and straight roads are often made through woody swamps, and where the few scattered and poor habitations offer little to cheer the traveller, a lover of plants will find beside the road conserva- tories of beauty in the ditches and pools of black water fringed with a profusion of stately ferns, and bog and water—bushes. Southwards and seawards, the bog—flowers, like the splendid kinds of herbaceous llibiscus, become tropical in size and brilliancy, while far north and west and south along the mountains grows the queen of the peat bog—the beautiful and showy hlocassin-flower \ltlt'r\.\.\lN-lv‘l,tl\\'l-‘.l\' 1N ROt‘KV HUG. (Cypripedium spectabile). Then in California. all along the Sierras, a number of delicate little annual plants continue to grow in small mountain bogs long after the plains are quite, parched, and annual vegetation has quite disappeared from them. but who shall record the beauty and interest of the flowers of the wide-sprezuling marsh— lands of this globe of ours, from those of the vast wet woods of America. dark and brown, and hidden from the sunbeams, to those of the breezy uplands of the high Alps, far above the woods where the little bogs teem with Nature‘s most brilliant llowers, joyous in the sun? No one worthily; for many mountain—swamp regions are as yet little. known to us. One thing. however, we may gather from t. IVATE/CSIDE AND BOG GARDENS 127 our small experience—that many plants commonly termed “alpine,” and found on high mountains, are true bog-plants. This must be clear to any one who has seen our pretty Bird’s—eye Primrose in the wet mountain-side bogs of \Vestmoreland, or the Bavarian Gentian in the spongy soil by alpine rivulets. In many country seats there are spots that with a little care can be made into pretty bog-gardens. “7 here there are no natural sites, a bog-garden may be made by forming a basin of brickwork and Portland cement, about one foot in depth ; the bottom may be either concreted or paved with tiles laid in cement, and the whole must be made water-tight; an orifice should be made in the side, at the height of 6 inches, to carry off the surplus water, and another in the bottom at the lowest point, with a cork, or, better still, with a brass plug valve to close it. Five or six inches of stones and bricks are to be first laid in, and the whole must be filled with good peat soil, the surface being raised into uneven banks and hillocks, with large pieces of clinker or stone imbedded in it, so as to afford drier and wetter spots. The size and form of this garden may be varied at discretion ; it should be in an exposed situation; the. back may be raised with a rockwork of stones imbedded in peat, and the moisture, ascending by capillary action, will make the position a charming one for Ferns and numberless other peatloving plants. It is in every way desirable that a small trickle of water should constantly flow through the bog; ten or twelve gallons daily will be sufficient, but if this cannot be arranged it may be kept filled by hand. Such a bog may be bordered by a very low wall of flints or stones, built with mortar, diluted with half its bulk of road-sand and leaf-mould, and having a little earth on the top; the moisture will soon cause this to be covered with moss, and Ferns and all kinds of wall-plants will thrive on it. “here space will permit, a much larger area may be converted into bog and rockwork intermingled, the surface being raised or depressed at various parts, so as to afford stations for more or less moisture-loving plants. Large stones should be freely used on the surface, so as to form mossy stepping-stones ; and many plants will thrive better in the chinks between the stones than on the surface of the peat. It is not necessary to render water-tight the whole of such a large area. A channel of water about 6 inches deep, with drain— pipes and bricks at the bottom, may be led to and fro or branched over the surface, the bends or branches being about 3 feet apart. The whole, when covered with peat, will form an admirable bog, the spaces between the channels forming drier portions, in which various plants will thrive vigorously. Perhaps the best place for an artificial bog is on sloping ground. O 128 TIIE lc‘Ar’GL/S/l FLO IVE/f (7.-1/\’/)];LV The water flows in at the top, and the surface must be rendered water-tight with Portland cement or concrete. Contour or level lines should then be traced on the whole surface at distances of about 3 feet apart, and a ridge, two bricks in height, should be cemented along each of the horizontal lines. These ridges, which must be perfectly level, serve to hold the water, and the surplus escapes over the top to the next lower level. Two-inch drain tiles, covered with coarse stones, should be laid along each ridge to keep the channel open, and a foot of peat should be thrown over the whole. Before adding the peat, ridges may be built on the surface, ( )gfi2‘1fl'u’fu m. THY/[111m A} z I v m 1 ’11 f. r, I]: You 131x. } ’1‘;1§I(f(l(.’u. .\ l:1)1;-(;.\l{l>l’..\'. the stones being built together with peat in the interstices. These ridges need not follow the horizontal lines. The positions thus formed are adapted both to grow and to display Ferns and alpine bog-plants to advantage. In addition to regular hog—plants, almost all the choice alpines will thrive better in the drier and more elevated parts than in pots or an ordinary border. l‘erhaps the most charming plants to commence with are our own native lx)g—plants——l’inguicula, l)rosera, l’arnassia, Menyanthes, Viola palustris, \nagallis tenella, Narthecium. ()smunda, liastrea ()reopteris, 'l‘helypteris spinulosa, and other Ferns: Sibthorpia europwa, Linnaui liorealis, l’rimula farinosa. t‘ampanula hederacea,Chrysospleniumaltcrnitolium and oppositifolium; Saxifraga a IVA TERSIDE .L/VD BOG-GARDENS 129 llirculus, aizoides, stellaris, Caltha, and Marsh Orchises. These, and a host of plants from our marshes and the summits of our higher mountains, will flourish as freely as in their native habitats, and may all be grown in a few square feet of bog; while Rhododen- drons, Kalmias, dwarf Ferns, and Sedges will serve for the bolder features. 1 have not space to enumerate the many beautiful foreign bog- plants which abound, and which may be obtained from our nurseries, although some of the best are not yet introduced into this country. One of the great charms of the bog-garden is that everything thrives ROYAL FERN (osnt'xn.\ REGALis). and multiplies in it and nothing droops or dies, but the real difficulty is to prevent the stronger plants from overgrowing, and eventually destroying, the weaker. A small pool of water filled with water—plants forms a charming adjunct to the bog—garden. The only caution necessary is to destroy the strong weeds before they gain strength—a single plant of Sheep Rot (Hydrocotyle), for example, would smother and ruin the entire bog in a season.— LATIMER CLARK. HARDY FERNs—In countries where hardy Ferns abound, they are often seen near water and in hollow and ditch-like places, and it is perhaps best to group them here with the waterside and bog plants. Many of the boldest and best may well be thus grouped. 7 Ix [30 Till? lc'A'GlilS/l FLO II'E/i’ GARDEN This is a way of treating them more artistically than arranging them in the prim and very special “hardy fernery.” The marriage of the fernery and the flower garden, too, is very desirable, our many hardy evergreen Ferns being excellent for association with hardy flowers. There are many varieties of our native l’olystichums, Hart's-tongues, Blcchnums, which would be excellent companions to evergreen herbaceous plants suited for sheltered, half-shady nooks. There are also many exotic kinds hardy and vigorous. Graceful effects may be developed in foregrounds, in drives through glades, and in many other positions, by the bold use of the larger hardy Ferns. The Bracken is everywhere ; but others are more graceful in form, delighting in the partial shade of open woods and drives, and succeeding even in the sun. Up to the present time Ferns have, as a rule, been stowed away in obscure corners, and have never come into the garden landscape at all. But they can give us new and beautiful aspects of vegetation not only in the garden landscape, but even in parks and woods. In the home counties there is probably not a better specimen than the fernery at Danesbury, of which I give an illustration. It is on a sloping bank in a rather deep dell, overhung with trees and Ivy, in the shade of which the Ferns delight. The spot has been improved by artistic rockwork. As regards the planting, the various families are arranged in distinct groups, and each group has a position and a soil adapted to its requirements. The best way of growing Ferns, however, is with flowers, as in Nature, and a hardy fernery may be very beautiful. As a rule, Ferns have in their natural state both soil and locality exactly suited to their requirements ; and the soil is yearly enriched by the decaying foliage of surrounding trees, which protects them in winter. In arranging a fernery, study the habits and requirements of the species, and allot to each the position most likely to produce the best results. At Danesbury the most sheltered, moist spot is given to the evergreen Blechnums, which delight in a damp atmosphere, and to the delicate forms of Asplenium. Osmunda, which thrives amazingly, is allotted a low swamp, which is, however, free from stagnant moisture. The soil used for these Royal lierns is a mixture. of good loam and fibrous peat. The better deciduous kinds of Polypodium, such as 1’. l’hegopteris and l’. l)ryopteris, have. sheltered positions ; and in quiet nooks may be found charming groups of the l’arsley l“ern,and Cystopteris fragilis, a most delicate and graceful Fern. Lastr‘a li‘ilix-mas and its varieties occupy the more exposed positions in company with fine colonies of the evergreen kinds, Comprising some unique varieties of the l’olystiehums, Scolopendriums, l’olypodiums, etc. A plentiful supply of water is available. 11:1 /'/§/x’S//>/:‘ 4/_\'/) FOL} (fgl/U/Vz'l'." 151 The heantv at 21 {emery is much enhanced if the larger kinds of herm grow out of same, plant of (1\\'ZII‘{C1‘ habit. The Ferns the1n~ l-J.l\'.\J.l\’\ A\l‘ |I.\.\l\!$1‘l\‘\', |\ JUN ‘ij;'\.'i_j\ Jn‘e much benefited by thin because there is not excessive evaporatirm during dry and hut weather. The small I’ems are best 152 THE EZVG/JS/l FLOIVE/C (L‘IIC‘DEN without any carpet. They are the choicest, rarest, and most difficult to grow, and as they require a little extra attention, it would be better not to risk their being smothered. The Fern—lover will remember that it is not only our own beautiful native Ferns that we pOssess for adorning our gardens, but that we have also the hardy Ferns of America. Asia. and the continent of Europe. SHELTERED DELL, w1TH TREE FERNS AND STOVE PLANTS PLACED OUT FOR THE SUMMER (BATTERSEA). CHAPTER X BEAUTY OF FORM IN THE FLOWER GARDEN SUB—TROPICAL gardening is one way of avoiding the eternal round of Geraniums, Calccolarias, and a few other common bedding plants, which, however worthy of culture, can hardly be said to convey a full idea of the beauty of the plant world. For some years, how— ever, the very name was sufficient to deter many from giving the system a trial, from the idea that only sub-tropical vegetation was admissible. This arose through Musas, Caladiums, and similar tender plants being tried, involving costly preparations for bottom heat, special soils, all considered necessary. Now, with the rich store of fine-foliaged plants from temperate climes it is quite possible to have a beautiful garden of hardy fine—leaved plants, for trees like the Ailantus and Paulownia make fine growth if cut down close to the ground every year. \Ve have also the hardy palm Chamaerops), the Yuccas, and graceful Bamboos, and Siebold’s Plantain Lily (Funlqia), Acanthuses, and plants of a similar character. Amongst those annually raised from seeds, and requiring only the protection of glass to start them, we have much variety from the stately Castor-oil-plant to the dwarf Centaurea. One advantage of using permanent plants in pots for central objects in groups or as isolated specimens on the turf is that, while they add variety to the arrangement during summer, they can be taken indoors when the 1\HH 1'\l \1 H\l\'1‘\ BEAZ’TY 01“ [7013.11 11V THE FLOH’EA’ GARDEN 135 beauty of the outdoor garden begins to fade. Although tender plants in pots are effective in summer in special positions, plants that cannot stand out‘of—doors from the beginning of June until the end of September can hardly be called fit for summer gardening. Among the most suitable are several kinds of Palm, such as Sea— forthia elegans, Chamzerops excelsa, and C. humilis ; Aralias, various; Draczenas, do.; Phormium tenax and its variegated form; Yucca aloifolia variegata, Ficus elastica, and Eucalyptus globulus, the bluish-gray tint of which is pretty. Erythrinas make fine autumn beds ; they are brilliant in colour, and useful for lighting up masses of foliage. Bamboos have such beautiful foliage, that where the winter is severe they should be used as large pot plants for plunging out-of-doors in summer. The hardiest Tree Fern, Dicksonia antarctica, looks well when plunged in shady dells where a canopy of overhanging foliage gives shelter and shade ; and several varieties of dwarf Ferns, such as the Bird's—nest Fern, are admirably adapted as undergrowth to this Fern. Plants raised from seed will, however, usually form the majority, owing to the lack of room under glass for many large plants. Of plants raised from seed the most useful are Cannas. If sown in February in strong heat, they make handsome plants for bedding; their foliage is graceful and their flowers are rich in colour. The roots increase yearly in size and strength. They may be taken up and wintered under glass, or securely protected in the soil by means of external coverings. The Cannas in London public gardens are protected in winter. Most of the tall light green-foliaged varieties flower freely and make excellent centres for groups, while the dwarf bronze—foliaged sorts are good for edging. Solanums are also effective. The spiny— leaved S. robustum, the elegant cut—leaved S. laciniatum, and S. “'arscewiczi make good single specimens, or edgings to groups of taller plants. \Vigandias, Ferdinanda eminens, and Melianthus major are all good if treated as annuals ; and among dwarf things that can be raised with them I may mention Brazilian Beet, with its richly- tinted leaves and mid—ribs ; Acacia lophantha, Amaranthus, Cineraria maritima, and Centaureas, with their silvery cut leaves. Bocconias, with their tall spikes of graceful flowers and noble foliage, make effective and permanent plants for isolated groups. The beautiful Pampas Grass and Arundo ought also to find a place. Several varieties of Rhus or Sumach have good foliage, Rhus glabra laciniata being elegant. Aralia japonica is also useful, and so are the Tritomas, with their Rush—like foliage and flame—like spikes of flower, and the Plantain Lilies. As to arrangement, the best beds or sets of beds are those of 1. \Ix'l‘l \ \l HM lll \l‘l‘lx’) \\|'\ ‘\ \I 1\ HR \55 I‘.\\H‘.\\ in \I />‘E.»I('/'Y 0/" l’le‘J/ /.\’ 77/16 131,011'12‘16 (}.-1/\’/>/§1\’ 1 the simplest design. Shelter is of importance, recesses in shrubberies or in banks clothed with foliage form the most fitting background for beds or groups to nestle in. Avoid Musas or (ltladiums, the lea\‘es of which tear to shreds if winds cannot be shut out, and also plants that look unhappy after a cold night or two. Make the most of plants that grow under nearly all conditions. If there is a dell or garden overhung by trees where flowering plants run to leaf and refuse to flower, use it for fine-leaved plants. ;\ garden where each plant spreads forth its delicate foliage will form a pleasant change from brilliant bedding plants; or seyerely geometric carpet l. G. l)Ci\ lil\>l-,'l‘l-Z I\' 'l‘llli Hl‘lfl\ (;\|(|l| \ \l' l‘\l\'l\ l‘l \( IV. lll'\l l \'»H\rlill\,\ll’.\ as graceful as tenderest exotics. .\eanthnses. too, when well grown are very snitahle. 'l‘hen we have a hardy l’alm that through all our reeent hard winters has preserved its health and greenness where— e\‘ei' its lea\'es eonld not he torn to shreds liy storms. 1\.s‘ an example of line torm trom hardy plants,l eannot do hetter than ;;i\e the New /ealand lx‘eed ii\rnndo eonspiena} This handsome tirass prodnees its l>lHSSHtlt-S])ll\'t‘.\‘ eailiei' than the l’ampas. and is more elegant in lllll)ll‘ the sill\_\' white tntts liending like ostrieh plumes at the end ot slender stalks. It is liest adapted to fiEa’l'Tl’ OF FORJI [.V 7'11]? EZOII’EA’ GA/x’DE/V 139 a sheltered corner, where it is protected from rough winds, and relieved by a background of darker foliage. As to tender plants in the open air, it would be difficult to give a better illustration than the stately Musa Ensete in Berkshire. ln sheltered nooks in the southern counties it makes a very fair growth in the summer. In 1877 I was struck with its health and rigour at Park Place, Henley-on-Thames. Mr. Stanton, the gardener, raised a batch from seed, and it was surprising what fine plants they became in fifteen months. They were sown in April, and planted out early in June. Placed indoors early in October, they remained throughout the winter in a warm greenhouse, and were BED OF FIXE-LEAVED I’LAXTS 1N HYDE PARK. FROM .\ SKETCH BY H. G. MOON. again planted out in the following June, when they formed fine young leaves. The plant is quite as effective in a conservatory in winter as when put out-of—doors during summer. Here is an illustration of a bold mass formerly near Hyde Park Corner, which seemed to illustrate the best features of recent fine- lcaved gardening. It had a great Abyssinian Plantain in the middle, and was fringed by a few sub—tropical plants, and edged by an extraordinary fringe of the fine hardy Siebold’s Plantain Lily, long—enduring in beauty. The reason of the success of this bed is clear. The bed was not a finicking angle or a wormy scrawl, but a bold circle, and presented no confusion to the observer, who simply saw the plants rising in a well-defined group from the roomy turf. \'L‘('(‘.\ HLURIHSA, S.\l.l.\‘l§l'l{\. .___.m.__._~7 It was by itself, could be seen unop- posed, and was not muddled up with a lot of other beds near it. It may be noted that the eye does not, as a rule, care for more than one thing at a time, and if invited to look at a picture made up of many things, rests with pleasure on some one spot. Lastly, the plant forms were strong and well selected, and contrasted well with the ordinary tree vegetation near, as there was plenty of Grass about the bed to allow ofcontrastswithoutcon— fusion with rival sub- jects. The way in which the Plantain Lilies began early in the year to adorn the spot. and continued to do so throughout the whole summer and autumn, was a pleasure to see. The drawing was made about the end of September. shortly after some heavy storms which tore the Musa a little, but the etl‘ect remained excellent till October. Some of the l’lantain l‘ily leaves had begun to fade, but they still produced a very tine C [let 1. lw‘fz‘AlZ'Y‘l' 0F FOICJI [V 7'11]? FION'E/r‘ (KAI/\‘IUQV I41 Yt‘t‘exs 1X GKOL'1’s.~#\\'herever space can be afforded, and suitable situations found. hardy Yuccas should be grown. l‘ew hardy subjects are so distinct in foliage and manner of growth ; but they appear to the best advantage if arranged in bold groups, and m the immediate vicinitv oftrees and shrubs, forming a harmonious con— trast to them. l’erhaps the best situation is a sloping ground fully exposed to the mid—day sun, and backed by evergreens. It allowed space for development, they will every year add beauty to the place. v EEIIIL'E’ UP HOUSE PLANT» l‘Iv.\(,lLl) ('JL'T FOR SUMMER. ll.\l\’l\’()\\‘ IJJINJI-l, DUKKIXG. The handsome spikes of their large cream-coloured flowers are extremely effective, especially when relieved by a background of verdure. Yuccas like a well—drained soil, and thrive on a subsoil of pure chalk. They delight in full exposure to the sun, and enjoy shelter from rough winds. Hence the advisability of planting them near trees or shrubs. The Yucca is hardy, but the foliage of several ofthe best species. such as filamentosa, is apt to get torn when much exposed. Tn grouping Yuccas, a more natural effect is obtained where i4: THE l:L\'(}/,[r%‘l[ /"/,()Il']§/t‘ (Ll/CIU'LY some of the specimens have the head of their foliage from feet to 6 feet above the soil. .\\ll{l{l« r\\ .\l.Ul-I. l'IX.\.\ll‘l.lZ Ul' tiRl-‘l‘XllUlM' l‘l.r\\li.\ Sl‘l~ l\ t‘l‘l‘X t\ll{ 1N Sl‘NlelClL l-iNt;l{.\\l-ill l“l\'\l.\l r\ l‘lltil‘HtiRAl‘ll 'l‘\l\l‘\ l.\ l\\ltilll‘\\lt l\' lx‘l"t'l‘0l\‘\ ti.\lll‘l-L\, “ORCI’RI‘ICR .\llll\‘l’. be allowed here and there to advance into the foregrountl‘ some of the smaller specimens nestling at their feet. 'l‘he effeet of a group thus arranged charms by its irregularity illltl quaint beauty. , 3 These tall plants should not, how— ever, be placed in a regular manner in a back line, but some should BEAUTY OF FOIL]! IN THE FLOIVEA’ GARDEZV 143 The use in gardens of plants having handsome leaves and fine form has taught us the value of grace and verdure amid masses of flowers, and has reminded us how far we have diverged from artistic ways. In a wild state brilliant blosso‘ms are usually relieved by a setting of abundant green. \Vhere mountain and meadow plants of one kind produce a sea of colour at one season, there is intermingled a spray of pointed grass and leaves, which tone down the colour masses. \Ye may be pleased by the wide spread of purple on a heath or mountain, but when we go near we find that its most exquisite aspect is seen in places where the long moss cushions itself beside the ling, and the fronds of the Polypody come up around little masses of heather. \Ye cannot attempt to reproduce this exactly, but it will be found the chief source of the beauty and interest of our garden; and the more we keep this fact before our eyes, the nearer shall we be to success. Nature's laws should not be violated; and few human beings have violated them more than flower-gardeners. We should com- pose from Nature, as landscape artists do. \Ve may have in our gardens—without making wildernesses of them either—all the shade, the relief, the grace, and the beauty of Nature. By selecting from the vast number of hardy plants in the country, and by associating them, where convenient, with house plants placed out for the summer, we may have as much variety and beauty of form as can be desired for the flower garden or pleasure-ground. Among the more tender plants, we must choose such as grow healthily in sheltered places in the warmer parts of England. The kinds with permanent foliage, such as the New Zealand flax and the hardier Dracaenas, will be as effective everywhere as they are around London and Paris, and to them the northern gardener should direct his careful attention. Even if it were possible in all parts to cultivate the softer—growing kinds to the same perfection as in the south of England, it would by no means be always desirable, as they cannot be used indoors in winter. The best are the many evergreen plants that stand out in summer without injury, and may be transferred to the conservatory in autumn, to produce through the cold months as fine an effect as in the flower garden in summer. But the hardy plants are of far greater importance; for while few can afford the tender plants, many may enjoy hardy ones, and that too with far less trouble than tender ones. The one illustration from the South of France exhibits very graceful vegetation; but the other engravings in the chapter show that effects quite as good may be had in English gardens. 144 '/'///:' lfiVti/JSII [7.0117176 (7_-l/i‘/)/§A\' Ono kind of arrangement in particular must be guarded against “the getunctro—pictnrcstnic one, scan in some parts of tlic l.U]l(lUll parks devoted to snb—trnpical gartlcning. The plants are often of i‘l\l-~ l,l',.\\l-‘,l) \l‘lbl‘lhii‘li \l. l‘l.\.\‘l‘\ \\'ll|l 1\\ \\l‘ ('l,l\llilll{>, IN l‘lll“ t;\l{l‘l‘\_\' Ul’ llll‘ l‘l(l\i l'\\ lxtll‘M‘lli‘l'lil Y, \l‘ \li l‘. tlic llncst lgintls and in lllt‘ must mlmst lit‘altli, and all tlic inatcrials tar lllt‘ lit‘st rcsnlts .n't‘ almntlant ; )‘t‘t the same tails to satisfy. from tho iim‘tllvss llirinality (it lllt‘ lictls. train lllt‘ lit‘aping tugt‘tlit‘r wt inan_\' spt‘t‘iint‘ns «it Ullt‘ l{llltl in lung inasst‘s, straight or twisting, with liigli raist‘tl t‘tlgt‘s tll‘ liartl—lit‘att‘n soil. BEAUTY OF FORZlI [JV THE FLOWER GARDEN I45 Pri/za‘pal Families of Plants wit/z flue Foliage or Form, for use [a Britt's/z Gardens Acacia. Acantlius . Agave . Ailanthus . Alsophila . Amaranthus . Andropogon . Aralia. Aristolochia . Artemisia . Arum . Arundo Asparagus. Asplenium Astilbe. Bambusa . Berberis Bocconia . Bupthalmum . Caladium . Calla Carma . Cannabis . Carduus Carex . Carlina Carludovica Caryota Centaurea . Chamaedorea. Chamaepeuce . Chamaerops Cineraria. Cordyline . Corypha Crambe Cucurbita . Cyathea Cycas . Cynara Cyperus. Datisca Dicksonia . Dicentra Dimorphanthus. Dipsacus . Dracxna . Echinops . Elymus Epimedium Bea)” 3-[17‘6366/1. AI/zerz‘eau Aloe. Tree of Heaven. Tree F er”. A maram‘lz. Beard Grass. Bz'rtlzwort. lVormwooa’. I/Val’e Robin. Reed. Spleeuwort. False Goat’s-oeara'. Bamboo. Barberry. Tree C elaua’z'ue. OI-eye. Ina’z‘au K ale. Arum Lz'ly. [Iza’z'an Slzot. Hemfl. T/zz'stle. Sea’ge. Carlz'ue T lzz'stle. Small Palmetto Palm. T oa’a’y Palm. C eutaury. Fz's/z-oone T lzz'stle. Fan Palm. Palm Lily. Palm. Kale. Gourd. Tree Fern. Fern Palm. C ardoou. Cretan Hemp Tree Fem. Lyre-flower. T easel. Dragon—plant. Glooe lez'stle. Lyme Grass. Barrelzwort. Equisetum Erianthus . Eryn gium . Erythrina . Eucalyptus Farfugium Ferdinanda. Ferula . Ficus Funkia Gourds. Gynerium . Gunnera. Gymnocladus H edychium. Helianthus H emerocallis . Heracleum Humea Inula Jubma . Kochia Keelreuteria. Latania Lavatera . Ligularia. Malva . Megasea . Melanoselinum Melia . Melianthus Meum . Molospermum. Montagnaea. Morina Mulgedium Musa N icotiana . N uphar Onopordon Osmunda . Panicum Paulownia. Petasites Phoenix Phormium Phytolacca H orse-taz'l . IVoolly Beara’ Grass. Sea Holly. Coral Tree. A ustralz‘aa Tree. Spotted C olt’s-fool. Gum Giant Femzel. Fig T ree. Plantain Lily. Pampas Grass. Kentudy Tree. C mfee Suuflower. Day Lz'ly. C ow Parsizz'p. A marautlz Feathers. Eleeampaue. Palm. Summer C ypress. Palm. Tree Mallow. .Mallow. Saxz'fraga. Black Parsley. [ua’z'au Lilac. . Cafle Honey-flower. Sfizgnel. W lzorl-flower. Blue Sow T lzz'stle. Banana. T Mateo-plant. Water Lily. Cotton T lzz'stle. F lowering F ern. Pam'o Grass. Batter Dock. Palm. 1V. Zea/amt Flax. Poke-filaizt. I46 771/3 EA'GIJSII FLOIl’E/i’ CARD/CA" l’l'l'ln'zfa/ fin/1171'“ (3/1 VII/11‘s -:u1'//z//m‘ I’v/m‘gz' or Far/11, jEU' 1/35 1'12 Erin's/z (hm/zwx—Contiuued l’olygouatum . l’olygouum l’olymnia . .l’othos. Rhapouticum Rheum Rhus Ricinus Ruuiex Saccllarum Sagittal‘ia . Scii‘pus Scaforthia . Seuccio Silphium Silylnuu Solamuu Sanchus Sorghum A\'l)/()///()/1‘5 5171/. [CI/Uf-mwzz’. lawful/fl. Nu vim c 1 ‘11/( I 1/ 1‘) u INN/barb. NIH/nub. Cay/zMani/f/rmz‘. [)(H‘K'. S'l/‘gnr-nlm’. "I )‘I‘Ufi‘ ‘//L'(l(/. [QM/I‘I/x/z, /)(I////. (”YUM/([317. ( 'wu/nmx-fi/(Uzz’. J/f/K' 77/131/(2 A\'/:‘\"/'//.\‘//(I(IIL‘. .Vm‘u 771/31/8. All/Y/c'll (I‘I'IIA‘J‘. Spinca . Stipa Struthiopteris 'l‘amai'ix Thalia. 'l‘halictrum Tritoma 'I‘upidantluis. Typha . Uhdea. Yeratrum . Yerbascum Verbesiua. \\'i;_:an(lia . “'oodu'ardia Xanthosia. Yucca Zea . Alb’llzl’fl'h’ NILE! . livrf/u'r (I) 'r INN. ( )xz‘) 15/1 [”517]. '/}I//1(lr1'.v/.'. J/am’nw /\)l/<’. Tun/z Li/y. [\‘L'L’tll-llldt't'. ”711.11, IVE/[£50712 Al/Itl/c'z'lz. Crown-A1122]. l)‘z:g'-/mf C 71111)] 1'1‘2'72. $1 (I? 11/1 Iv—m‘uzl’lc. All (1/55. Particulars of culture and position will be found in the alphabetical part. iilhil'l‘ HI? Mll(l\l(l\l,\ sl‘.\l. i‘\ll IN N \ l' H13 \\,\l.l. CHAPTER XI t‘l.l_\ll§lil{>' (H'u numerous hardy climbers are rarely seen to advantage, for the\' are um ”(ten stit‘lly trained against walls. Indeed, manv have gone mi in: i l ' mm MW w Film n“ l (fl.lr_\lr\ l'l\ (W iii-l E’Ul'iCll. nut of cultivation because there were no just ideas of their proper u\:e. One of the happiest of all ways of using them is to train them I48 TIYE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN freely against trees; and many good effects may be thus secured. The trees must not, of course, be crowded like those in shrubberies, but standing on the turf. The graceful companion may garland the heads of some low trees; in tall ones the stems only may at first be adorned. But some vigorous climbers could in time ascend the tallest trees, and I know of nothing more beautiful than a veil of Clematis montana suspended from the branch of a tall tree. Besides the well—known and popular climbers, there are various handsome plants which may be seen to great advantage in this way: for example, many species of Clematis, which have never come into general cultivation, but which are as beautiful as climbers can be. The same may be said of the Honeysuckles, wild Vines, and various other families of which the names may be found in catalogues. The nurseries are by no means rich in them ; but much of the northern tree and shrub world is garlanded with creepers which may be grown in similar ways, for example, on banks and in hedgerows. The naked stems of the trees in our pleasure-grounds have, however, the first claim on our attention in planting garlands; for there would seldom be any fear of injury to well—grown trees. A garden of creepers ! Yes, why not? If any one likes to carry out the idea, a most interesting garden can be made of creepers, twiners, and climbers. Not indeed a garden of trim formal beds, as the growth of such plants could not—in fact, should not—be kept within set bounds, but what groups and clusters of climbing Roses, Honeysuckles, Jasmines, Clematis, and Ivies, might one possess in such a garden ! Those who have not made a study of creepers and their uses may be aided in the consideration of their merits by grouping them according to the season in which they are most effective. During the winter, Cotoneaster microphylla and C. Simonsi are good plants for walls, as well as for training up a pole or planting on the top of a mound of rockwork. liscallonia macrantha, Berberis Darwini, and B. stenophylla are useful to clothe walls to a height of 12 or 14‘ feet. Chimonanthus fragrans should be planted for the sake of the delicious spicy scent of its flowers in winter. In sheltered places in the south of England, Magnolias are handsome plants in winter, with their fine large leaves, but in many places they require protection in severe weather, and should therefore not be used for winter effect. For the spring we have also a long list. Clematis montana grandiflora, \\'istaria sinensis, and alba, the white form, are good for covering high walls, or for training over anywhere where quick- growing creepers are required. liorsythia \‘iridissima and Cydonia japonica are plants of lower growth, but are very desirable for 149 Cl. LUBE/CS V 'l‘he } making out the outlines of panels, 01 for covering the {ace of :1 “ell0\\'—tl0\\'ering Jnsmines llower early lnlttt‘ess or L1 pier. ‘)lllllr\,\l. ll.\.\'l ‘, '. l( ,\:(t\'.lr‘ spring offers us, a few Roses, for the old pink China or well as the latest to flower, and Gloire (le (it u the Klunthiy i< the earliest as enerally opens its first flowers early in May. n the summer that the creepers are at their best, for l)l_i‘)ll 3 lSUt it is i 150 THE EA’GLISII FLOU’EA’ GARDEN then the Rose, the Clematis, the Honeysuckle, the Magnolias, and the Jasmine are in season ; and what Visions of beauty are conjured up by the mere mention of their names. Roses alone are capable of adorning the most commonplace buildings. Besides these plants there is the Passion—flower (I’assiflora coerulea), but it is only fit for sheltered places, as it is not quite hardy in our coldest seasons ; still, if its base be sheltered with some dry Fern, it will spring again from the base. The Stauntonia latifolia is a very rapid-growing creeper in the south of England. The Birthworts—Aristolochia Sipho and A. tomentosa are good climbing plants, the last-named having silvery leaves. Then for warm sheltered places the Ceano- thuses are very beautiful, freely producing blue flowers of various shades. And, besides the hardy creepers, there are a great many summer or annual creepers, bright and effective, such as the Tropmolum, I.ophospermum, Maurandya, Convolvulus, and Ipomzea, in many varieties. In the autumn there is also much beauty of leaf and fruit or berry, if less of blossom. The Virginian Creepers are then in all the splendour of crimson and bronze; the Japanese Honeysuckle is resplendent in its network of gold, and we have the bright berries of the Pyracantha and the Cotoneaster—most fitting and appropriate autumn decoration. Hardy climbers in gardens should, for the most part, be what they are in their native places: trailing over trees, or shrubs, or stumps, or banks, or over such artificial supports as railings, rustic work, etc. No plant bears repression and continual pruning so badly as a vigorous climber. In that way, moreover, its beauty can rarely be well seen. The shrub that does not climb is often fit to train on walls: for example, the evergreen Iiuonymus, the I’yracantha, and certain evergreen Barberries. The value of wild Vines for covering wall-surfaces must also not be forgotten. I have seen them Clamber- ing up forest trees, spreading into huge masses of fine foliage on the ground, and sending out long arms to find the nearest trees. :\ l’liRtiol..\.—--Adaptations of the Italian pergola are much to be recommended for linglish gardens. since though our summer is short, there are a good three months when a bowery shaded walk would be most enjoyable, and the numbers of free-growing climbing plants at our disposal, besides \‘ines, give an abundant choice of material. Aristolochia, \\'istaria, \‘irginian Creeper, rambling Roses Iloneysuekles, jasmines, and the free t‘lematises are all suitable, and look well and do well in such a position. In Italy and other \ parts of the sunny south one often sees in gardens the. pergola, as the creeper-clad arbour or walk is called, which generally serves the twofold purpose of supporting the tirape Vine and affording pleasant coolness during the summer heat. .-\s a rule, these pergolas are \I‘.NI( L. \ '1‘ <.‘\lx‘l)l.\ L\ \]l\". L17J.f\5 1111.11.\, \, \\Hl[ \\Hl'll: l‘l,]\'(;Ul. I 52 T [1E ENG]. [51] FL 0 IV]! A’ CA [€015 1V rude trellis-work structures of wood, sometimes supported by stone where this is at hand. In the gardens in the neighbourhood of Rome, Naples, and Florence I have seen some beautiful examples of the pergola stately structures, the supports of which were massive columns of stone covered and festooned in a beautiful way with Banksian Roses, VVistaria, Pergularia odoratissima, Peri— ploca graeca, Clematises, Honey- suckles, blue Passion-flowers, ‘1‘ scarlet Trumpet-flowers, and " other beautiful Climbers, struc— tures which formed the most delightful retreats in flower- time, and were cool in the hot days. But such pergolas seldom occur outside the rich gardens of the great villas, and near humbler dwellings the pergola is usually a simple structure made for the purpose of sup— porting the Grape Vine. The pergolas, like the NICVVLY-hflkhllill l’l‘jRGUliA AT NUNSTICAU), “llll _ . “RICK PILLARS AND on; 'rmmcks. Stately fountamsy are In Italy quite appropriate to the country and the climate. They are rarely necessities in our English climate ; but simple adaptations would add to the delights of many an English garden. A creeper—clad trellis spanning a frequented walk is a good feature in a garden, as it gives a contrast to the open breezy parts, and serves for growing many beautiful hardy climbers which can only be seen at their best when rambling over trees, trellises, or along the tops of walls. It should lead to somewhere and be over a frequented walk, and should not interrupt any line of view. The breadth, height, and length are points for individual taste to dispose of, but if flowering creepers are desired to cover it, it must not be placed under or near the shade of big trees, especially such as the Elm, whose hungry roots would travel a long way to feed upon the good soil that the creepers must be planted in. The form of the structure must also be governed by circumstances and individual taste. ;\ simple structure is the best; the supports should be Oak tree stems, about 0 inches in diameter with the bark on, let into the ground about: teet; if on a bed of concrete the better. The posts must be connected and firmly secured to each other by long pieces of similar width and running along the sides, while the top may be formed of small pieces fixed transversely CLIMBERS r 53 across the top. This will make a more firm and massive structure, and the simpler it is kept the better it will look. On no account let the “rustic” carpenter begin to adorn it with his fantastic branches, which he is so fond of doing. CLIMBING ROSES ON TREES.——Occasionally in England one sees a beautiful climbing Rose rambling over a tree, and perhaps among our garden pictures nothing is more lovely than such a Rose when in flower. By a selection of the hardiest of climbing Roses, very beautiful pictures might be formed in our pleasure-grounds, and even in our woods; and we might often see as the result of design what is now mainly an accident. There is a great deal too much pruning of Roses. A certain number of kinds lend themselves admirably to growing “free” among trees; and other kinds would succeed with a little pruning every few years after their growth became matured. There are, however, countries more favourably situated than ours for such Rose beauty. In Europe, perhaps the country that pleases one most by its fitness for Rose culture is that along the shores of the Mediterranean, about Nice, Genoa, and Cannes, where the Banksian and many other Roses may be seen literally “abandoning themselves ”—up trees, forming hedges, and arranging themselves in other delightful ways. I remember being very much struck, during the short time I spent in that country, with the beauty of the single Banksian Rose in such positions, and often wondered why it was not secured for our own gardens, even though it might not grow so freely as there. It is a little yellow single Rose, and is most free and graceful. An arch or series of arches, when well furnished with beautiful climbing plants suitable for such a purpose, forms a charming feature in the garden. \Vhen a quiet and sequestered walk leads from one especially interesting part of the garden to another, and that walk is spanned at intervals with bold wire arches clothed with such beautiful climbers as Honeysuckles, Clematis, climbing Roses, Jas- mine, and similar subjects, a great charm is imparted to what might be a dull and uninteresting walk, for the beauty of the flowers is in the case of many of these climbers supplemented by their fragrance. In immediate proximity to doorways or gateways in a garden such an arch will veil the hard outlines of the entrance. A pretty series of floral arches recently came under my observation. A tennis—ground was separated from the rest of the garden by a thick belt of shrubs, and over each of the openings giving admission to the ground a number of arches clothed principally with Clematis produced a striking effect. THE ENGLISH FLOW/ER GARDEN Some Families of Hardy C [IV/Ming Plan/5, including also I54 Abelia. Calystcgia. Abutilon. Camellia. Adlumia. Ceanothus. Akebia. Chimonanthus. Aloysia. Choisya. Ampelopsis. Clematis. Apios. Cissus. Aristolochia. Convolvulus. Atragene. Cotoneaster. Azara. Eccremocarpus. Berberidopsis. Echinocystis. Berberis. Edwardsia. Bignonia. Escallonia. Bomarea. Fuchsia. Hablitzia. Hedera. lndigofera. Jasminum. Kerria. Lonicera. Lophospermum. M aurandya. Magnolia. Menispermum. M ikania. Olearia. Osmanthus. l’assiflora. IVa/Z—P/aflts 1 Periploca. Piptanthus. Punica. Pyrus. Rosa. Rubus. Smilax. Solanum. Stauntonia. Thunbergia. Viburnum. Vitis. \Veigela. \Vistaria. 1 In this country we are often led to plant against walls things which are naturally shrubs, Abelia, Pyrus Japonica, Sweet Verbena—~but which thrive best on walls in Britain, and are often among our most beautiful things for them. MEXHWN ORANUl-‘-l~‘l.U\\‘l-ZR (L'IIHISYXl. \L‘lx’lx‘l V, l.\ (J,\ (ul'l \<.L \\ [\1fl\l\'l\ (‘Rl‘llil’ING FORGlC’l‘-i\lli—\IO'1‘. C H A P T E R XII SPRING FLOWERS A GARDEN with many hardy flowers has at least three months' clear gain in flowers over one which depends entirely on “bedding—out." This “bedding—out" is usually done the first week in June. The plants being tender, the cold rains and storms after that date fre— quently injure them, and their period of beauty is often much later. The bedding system reduces the beauty of the garden by one half. The first move towards spring gardening was a kind of bedding- out an arrangement of Forget—me-nots, Pansies, Daisies, Catchflies, Violets, and Hyacinths in beds and in ribbons ; but this way of culti- vating spring flowers is not the best. The easiest and most artistic is to scatter about the flowers wherever they will grow—in mixed beds, hedgerows, or plantations. Many country gardens, like the London parks, are as bare and ugly in their dug borders as a London cemetery. It was uncommon some years ago to see a beautiful flower in the open air before the time of bedding-out. Now that we have doubled the length of our flower season, the best ways of enjoying spring flowers is an important question. Every place where there is a pleasure-ground, or any open space for grass with trees on it, may be made delightful with the winter Aconite and Snowdrop, the spring Snowflakes, the blue Apennine Anemone, and various other flowers dotted in the grass, and under the branches of summer-leaflng trees. Some little plants that flower and ripen their leaves early find a happy home under Beech or Oak or other deciduous trees ; they complete their season's work before the leaves come on the trees, and in spring are seen happy under the branches. Then again, wherever wild flowers grow well, numerous additions from other countries may be made to them. For instance, if we have a grove where the wood Anemone grows naturally (a Common occurrence enough), nothing is easier than to introduce the blue Apennine Anemone with it. If the soil be chalky. the yellow Anemone (A. ranuneuloidesl would be a delightful addition. Or SPRING FLOWERS 157 does the Bluebell or wood Hyacinth’grow with us? Then certainly in the same place, or near it, will also grow the bell-flowered Scilla and S. bifolia—not native plants, but perfectly hardy in our country. Various kinds of Daffodils or Narcissi, as, for example, the different forms of Poet’s or Pheasant—eye Narcissus, will grow in any place where the common Daffodil will. The beautiful wood Forget-me-not may be sown in any wood, copse, or shrubbery, and will give an ample return. Thus it will be seen that, apart from the garden proper, much may be done in adding the glory of spring flowers to any place where there are trees and grass. The corners in an old orchard are delightful for experiments of this kind. Coming into the garden proper, we may look at the many positions in which spring flowers may be grown before we come to the geometrical bedding, which is the most troublesome of all. The fashion of leaving beds of Roses, choice shrubs, etc., bare of all but what might be called their proper contents must be given up. In many places the half—bare Rose beds alone would furnish a happy home for numerous beautiful spring flowers—Pansies, Violets, choice Daffodils, Scillas; in fact, for many pretty dwarf plants established in colonies between the Roses. Double Primroses are particularly happy in such positions, and flower profusely. The slight shade such plants receive in summer from the other tenants of the bed assists them; they do better than in bare borders. Where the Rhododendron beds are planted in an “open” way as they often are (and the precious bushes never ought to be jammed together), a garden of another delightful kind is at our disposal. The peat- loving plants (and there are many fair ones among them) will be quite at home there—much more so than in any bare borders. The white wood Lily of the American woods, the Virginian Lungwort, the Canadian Bloodroot, and the various Dog’s-tooth Violets enjoy peat beds. Next we come to borders and beds of favourite spring flowers, such as Polyanthus, Primroses in their coloured forms, Cow- slips, Auriculas, which in the self-coloured and border kinds are delightful. One can“ cut and come again” for the flowers; they are also convenient for division and exchange. Then along favourite walks in quiet places, a rich border for those glorious Polyanthuses and coloured Primroses and any other favourite free spring flowers may be made. Thus it will be seen that before we come to the formal massing of spring flowers there is a variety of ways of enjoy- ing them more artistic and more easily managed than “bedding- out” pure and simple. That may follow the fashion of the hour, and be arranged according to taste, with a considerable variety of material—Forget-me-nots, Daisies (both variegated and green), Silene, Pansy, Violet, Hyacinth, Anemone, Tulip, and so on. If we [58 771E EZVGLIS]! [VLOU’E/t’ GA/i‘IDIc‘zV have a group of beds, and, say, a parterre under a window or in any other conspicuous position, a bright and pretty effect may be formed ; but without any such thing as either parterre or formal beds under the windows, fair gardens of spring flowers may be made in every place. If they are, the eternal problem of the design for the few formal beds of the parterre will not be so terrible as at present. Of late a number of beautiful forms of well-known flowers have been collected from various countries or raised from seed. For example, it is believed that there now exist over a dozen different forms of the Lily of the Valley, differing in size of bloom, in size of plant, and even in time of flowering. So, again, the Hepaticas, which we know in two or three bright forms, have broken into a much greater number. It needs only a small effort of the imagina— tion to see what we can do with such treasures when they are suffi— ciently increased to be valuable for general garden decoration. Apart from these new forms of old friends, many wholly new species are being introduced yearly, thus adding to the store from which we may draw to make our spring gardens rich in form, colour, and fragrance. Let all who love the early flowers (the joy of our climate) look at the following list, remembering that it is not a list of the kinds of spring flowers (which are innumerable}, but of the families. Some of these names, such as Narcissus and Rockfoil, stand for very large groups of lovely flowers. Then perhaps persons may judge if these beautiful children of the mountains and plains of the northern world are fairly shown by what is called “spring bedding "——-a few bits of wood l’orget-me-not and Silene in a pattern, like those horrid tiles with which aesthetic architects “ decorate " our houses in their awakened sense of beauty. This system prevents any noble use of the beds, and we have to root all up when summer comes. Some 5 I'D/g" and [fez/{1' .V/m/mur [Ya-a 03‘ Hard? [/1 Eng/11v]! Gardens 1 Adonis. Aubretia. Dianthus. Ficaria. ;\l‘vssum. Hollis. Dit‘entra. lr‘ritillaria. Andromeda. Androsaee. Anemone. Aquileg ia. Arahis. Armeria. Arenaria. .‘\sperula. Asphodelus. Caltha. Centanrea. Cerastitnn. Clematis. C rot‘us. Convallaria. Cyclamen. Daphne. llentaria. llodet‘atheon. lloronicum. l )raba. Cranthis. ipimedium. .—-4 l lirica. lirinus. lirodium. l“. rythronium. lr‘umaria. Cxenista. Geranium. Galanthus. Geum. (lypsophila. l lelleborus. llepatica. llesperis. l Shrubs are excluded: they will be found in the chapter on “ Flowering Trees and Shrubs." lloustonia. ll_\‘;u‘imliiis. Ilicris. ll'lS. Lt‘le‘QlLllll. l.ill:11'l.‘t. l.llllllll. l.i1lio in 2 N ‘7’, \t :\,X.\\ \Jhx :\\2\>\\, \ e“. R.“ STONE BASKICI‘ 01“ FLOWERS g\.\‘l\ l"lNlC—l,l§.\\'l~‘.l‘ PLANTS IN THE GARDEN ;\'l‘ lllit‘KI-‘llilil‘ PLACE. think more of them than of the pattern. By way of variety, succulents are desirable plants for dry positions and under the shade of trees, where other bedding plants do not flourish satisfactorily. lirom their power of withstanding storms of wind and rain, and even drought and cold, they are always in good form ; and they should have a place in summer tlmver—garden arrangements of any extent. 'l‘hey harmonise well with many hardy plants that may serve as cushions for them to display their quaintness on. The, term “succulent" includes all plants of a tleshy character. the more common types being the. licheverias. t‘otyledons. and Kleinias. ;\gaves and l\loes are more rare. but are none the less valuable for bedding. \'l\s1~i>‘.~ ln their proper place, and in due proportion, vases and SUfllJlEk-BEDDING GARDENING I 73 baskets are useful in flower gardens, but they are frequently to a great extent out of all harmony with the style of the garden and its surroundings. Perhaps the tendency to over-decorate in this way is due to the geometrical plan of many gardens, when vases are placed on every pedestal and at every corner to square with many meaningless angles. Happily, this style of gardening is giving place to a less formal one in which vases and baskets can be used or not, according to the taste of the owner. When vases are used in large numbers, much may be done by planting plants of a drooping character in them; indeed, vases look most natural when trailers or climbers droop over the sides. Basket—formed beds are well suited to almost any position in pleasure-grounds ; but the best of all spots is in an isolated recess on the turf, and next, in the central bed of a flower garden, where the surrounding beds are circles or ovals. I have one, the extreme length of which is 16 feet; it is 8 feet wide in the middle, stands 2 feet 6 inches above the turf, and is made of Portland cement. The principal plants in it are Marguerites, Pelar- goniums, Heliotropes, Fuchsias, Marvel of Peru, Abutilons, Castor- oils, Cannas, Japanese Honeysuckles, and Tropxolums. More rustic- looking baskets would be better suited for isolation on the turf and for distant parts of the pleasure—grounds; and very good ones can be formed of wirework,lined inside with zinc,or made of barked Oak boughs instead of wirework. In baskets and vases of this kind permanent plants should be used, such as the variegated Ivies, Periwinkles, Japanese Honeysuckles, Clematises, and climbing Roses—space being reserved for flowering plants in summer and for small shrubs in winter. SUB-TROPICAL BEDDING—There are four types of summer flower-gardening: I, the massing (the oldest); 2, the carpet; 3, the neutral—quiet and low in colour, mainly through use of succulents; and 4, the sub-tropical, in which plants of noble growth and graceful foliage play the chief part. To my mind, a mixture of the four classes is the very ideal of flower-gardening. It is possible to plant a formal garden in such a manner that the severest critic could not complain of excessive formality; for, after all, it is the abuse of carpet bedding that has brought it into dis- repute. And justly so, for when one sees bed after bed and arrange- ment after arrangement repeated without end, with no plants to relieve the monotony of flat surfaces, one has good reason to protest. I have charge of a terrace garden which has to be planted with a view to obtaining the best display from June to November, and I am therefore compelled to adopt the carpet—bedding system; but I supplement it by dotting over the surface, of necessarily formal arrangements, plants of noble or graceful aspect, such as Acacia, Dracama, and Yucca. In such arrangements a judicious blending I 74 771E ENGLISH 13/, 0 IVE/C (7.4 EDIE/V of beds of flowering plants, principally l’elargoniums, adds brightness to the whole; but, save under exceptional circumstances, flowers, and even fine-foliaged and flowering plants, should never be put in the same bed as succulents. The colour—massing or grouping style of summer—gardening is best adapted to a terrace or parterre that is well backed up or surrounded by evergreens, as these afford relief from the glare of brilliant colours, and at the same time set them off to advantage. A few plants of fine form distributed apart over the garden, and especially in beds of glaring colours, will be found to enhance the beauty of the whole. My view of sub—tropical gardening is, that it is only suitable for positions where it can be PART 01’ INCH Ul" “ lHCUUNlAS” .\'l‘ CANOXS .\.\‘lll.\'. associated with water, or for sheltered nooks and dells, where the force of the wind is broken before it comes in contact with the plants. “here such positions are not at command, it is best to choose the hardier class of noble or handsome foliaged plants, many of which may be permanently planted, such as ;\ilantus, Rhus, .‘\rundo, Salisburia, Yueeas, and the hardy l’alm tChamzerops humilis). ()f half-hardy plants that will withstand wind there are numbers, such as .*\raucaria, Acacia, lt‘ieus. t‘ycas, Draea‘na, Aralia. In planting sub—tropical plants, care should be taken that the beds when fully furnished do not have a “bunehy” appearance. To avoid this, plant thinly, and use as undergrowth dwarfer plants, of whieh there are many suitable kinds. SUMMER .\Nn WINTER lilClHHNtL-h Now that there is such a S UJIJIE R-BE DDIN G GA It’DEJV/NG 175 wealth of plants suited for furnishing the flower-beds in winter, there can be no excuse for their remaining empty after the summer- bedding plants are cleared away. Much labour is required to carry out both summer and winter bedding; but I strongly recommend this kind of decoration. There are reasons why winter bedding should be encouraged. First, winter is the season when all around us is bleak, dull, and bare—leaden skies, leafless trees, flowerless meadows, and silent woods, all of which have a depressing effect on most temperaments. It therefore behoves us to endeavour to neutralise this prevailing dulness by making our gardens as cheerful as possible. Another reason—which to those fond of summer bedding should be the great reason for adopting winter bedding— is the short period during which summer bedding continues in perfection. The thought is continually haunting one that it will fade all too soon. The adoption of winter bedding, however, in my own case obliterates such thoughts, and one looks forward to real pleasure from both systems. Nor has this been the only result. It being necessary that summer and winter bedding should meet, ingenuity had to devise means to this end. This led to my using as summer bedders many hardy plants which otherwise I should not have thought of using, but which are just as effective as tender exotics; nay, in some cases, more so; and which, when planted in the spring, serve till the following spring, when they are taken up, divided, and replanted for another year. SHRUBS FOR \VINTER BEDDING—Isolated beds or a series of beds in parts of pleasure-grounds not much frequented in winter may not repay the labour and expense of thus planting them ; but for gardens immediately under the windows of a mansion—as most bedded-out gardens are—the winter filling of the beds is of the utmost importance if permanent enjoyment is desired. There can certainly be no enjoyment in looking out upon bare beds, and that at a time usually gloomy enough without having a daily spectre of barrenness directly under our eyes. The naked beds in winter, no doubt, constitute the strongest objection to the bedding-out system, and, whilst acknowledging the justice of the objection, it is well to bear in mind that, to a great extent, the same objection is applic- able to hardy herbaceous plants, as few of these do real furnishing service during the winter months. Indeed, for a garden overlooked from the windows, I should certainly prefer the bedding-out plan, supplemented by shrub-planting for the winter—and not necessarily the planting of shrubs alone, but of other hardy evergreen plants, particularly the dense—growing Sedums and Saxifrages, and similar plants, many of which are now used with excellent effect in combination with ordinary bedding plants in summer arrangements. I76 THE ENGLISH FLOIVE/t’ GARDEN The more plants of this type that it is possible to work in with the summer bedders, the less the labour when the time arrives for the winter planting; for, to furnish the parterre in winter, we do not require to move more than half the plants that have done duty in summer. It now only remains to give a list of the best kinds of shrubs for the pur- pose, the list being strictly composed of kinds that bear removal well, do not grow fast, or change colour after planting. It is as follows :— Aueuba. Euonytnus. Pernettya. Vinca. Berber-is. Hollies. Portugal Laurels. Yews (green and Cotoneaster. Juniper. Retinospora. variegated). Cupressus. Laurustinus. Rhododendron. Yucca. Erica. Osmanthus. Thujopsis. \V. \V. Principal Families of Plants usea’for Bedding-out. Abutilon Indian [Ila/low. Herniaria . It’ll/)turewort. Agatha‘a Cafe Aster. Hollyhock. Ageratum . Flosszflower. Iberis Candytuft. Ajuga . . . Bug/e. Iresine . Blood-leaf Alternanthera foyweea’. Lantana Gue/dre Rose. Alyssum 11/ (ht-wort. Leucophyton. Anagallis Pz'nzpernet. Lobelia. Anthemis . C (anoint/e. Matricaria. ilfayweed. Asters (China). Mesembryan- Amaranth us A nuzmnt/z. themu 1n [cap/ant. Begonia . . . Eltfl/mnt’s-eye. Mimulus Monkey—flower. Blue Marguerite. Myosotis Forget-Inc—not. Brugmansia Perm/fan Trmnpet- Nertera Fruiting Duck- flower. weed. Caleeolaria S/ngfiertuort. N ierembergia C ujfiflower. Canna . Indian Snot. (Enothera . Evening Pn'mrose. Centaurea . Centamy. Oxalis . . IVood Sorrel. Cerastium . [Home-ear, C/zz'ek- Pachyphytum Silver-bracts. weed. Pansies. Cheiranthus IMz/lflotuer. Pclargonium . Store’s-oil]. Chrysantheimun. Pentstelnon. Cineraria. Petunia. Coleus . F/(z/ne Al’tt/e. Phlox. Convolvulus 1>’1')m’-a'ee(t'. Plantain Lily Cotyledon . Alive/wort. (Funkia). Cuphea C zgaz‘y‘I'o-wer. Plumbago . Leadwort. Dahlia. Polemonium jac‘oo’s-lmz'der. Daisies. Pulmonaria Lintg'a'ort. I) iantli us I’z'nl‘. l’y rethru 1n Fever-flan Eclicvel'ia. Salria Sage. Erigeron A ”(er/(fan Flea Santolina Lavender Cotton. Bane. Saponaria . Soaflwort. Fuchsias. Sedum . Stonec‘nyfi. Gazania I‘l‘t‘da‘lfl‘c’tf/(l‘TC’t’l'. Sempo rviv um fflim‘e/eel'. Gladiolus Sword [J/y. Seuecio (iromzaix‘ul. (‘xnaphaliuni Cmt-zuem’. Silone Cate/Mfr. l'Ieliotropiuln . fly/z'otro/w. Solanum A'Ig/ztxlmde. Sl '_l/.l/[:‘/i‘-/)‘]5/)])/l\'(? (LI/CDEA'IA'U SlLlL‘ll)‘: ll lip/(1' Him/2d- 'l‘ussilago (“n/fix: 00f. run/"f. \‘Crlwiiu . Ii‘I'zw'n. Macks. \‘cnmim . . . N/u‘a/zuv//. 'l'lialivii‘iiiii filmy/mu li’m'. \‘iolii . . . I'M/Hf. l‘iwiii‘i nlum . L}. mic/z Alix/11W— \‘ittzulcniu. {Iii/(171’. .\1':U l/U/M/M’ [LI/19'. l1‘1‘.\'1‘1.11. "(1111110113. (11111105 l;1 (11111101112 11011131111111 Rambler, 3111111111111 .\lI‘rcLl LX11‘1'1C‘1'1‘. Mario 1411111161: 1(1‘1111‘ 31:11‘11‘ 111*111'11‘111‘. Reinc 011111 111- \\'11r1v111':~:11g1 \‘151‘1111111959 17111110510110. L‘11\1111N1; 1111.“ 111111111101 11.011 15111111c 1)111)11)', (111111'1‘ 110 Dijon. 311111211111‘ 1131:1111. ’1‘! 1 \1‘1«1NI1111. .1\111111 0111\101‘. (K111111110 1\'11stcr. 1211101 1‘11'11\\'11lm\'. 1913111119111 l\'1'11‘;1-r. 1111111 Darling; 111111. 12111111 (111111111. 11111111‘1‘1111‘ P111111 102111 ”1111101; 112111 11111111. 111105 15111:;01‘. Madame (11111105. .\1;11l;1111c (1101111110 (11111111issmu, \l.11111111c 17:111‘01. Madame 141111111111, Marie \';111 11011110. l’crlc 111‘s 1:11‘1li1r>, 5111111‘1111' 11'1111 .~\11111 CHAPTER XVI COLOUR IN THE FLOWER eAiuncN NATURE is a good colourist, and if we trust to her guidance, it is possible to be very good flower gardeners without considering laws of colour. \Ve never find colour wrong in the wood, in the meadow, or on the mountain. “Laws” have been laid down about colours which the better kind of artists ignore. If people have to make pocket-handkerchiefs, or to spread about coloured gravels, then it is necessary to consider what ugly things will shock us the least; but dealing with living plants in their infinite and beautiful tints of green, and with their nearly always beautiful flowers, is a different thing. To consider the “ laws ” of colour laid down by writers on decoration is a waste of time. If we grow plants of good colour properly, all will be right in the end. The complicated pattern beds universal throughout the flower-gardening world should be given up in favour of simpler, larger beds, of whatever shape best suits the ground. A very important reason for this is the colour. \Vhen people have little pincushion—beds where the whole “pattern " is seen at once, and where they use dwarf plants, the desire comes to bring in colour in a geometric, unnatural, and inartistic way. For this purpose the wretched Alternanthera and other pinched plant rubbish were grown. Such plants are not worth growing at all. Plants naturally dwarf, like the beautiful alpine plants, should be grown in rocky beds, where. their forms and flowers will be beautiful without any relation to patterns of colour. \Vhen brilliant flowers are associated with plants like Roses, a little taller than themselves, and with plants like Carnations and tall Irises, having pointed and graceful foliage, the colours are relieved against the delicate and varied foliage. of the plants. By having the beds large enough we have the chance of relieving the plants with taller plants behind. In a shrubbery, too, groups of flowers are nearly always right, and we can follow our desire in flowers without much thought of colour. But the roots of the shrubs rob COLOUR [1V THE FLOW/ER GARDEN 193 the flowers; and the best way is to put in near and around shrubberies free-running plants that do not want fine gardening, like Solomon’s Seal and \Voodruff, and the numerous plants that grow naturally among shrubs. W hen we come to deal with flowers like l’ansies, Carnations, and Roses, and other flowers that depend for their beauty to some extent on good cultivation, the best way is to keep them in the open, and free from contention with hungry tree-roots. By having large simple beds, such as I use myself, we get the flowers relieved, and enjoy beauty of colour in the flowers and the forms of the plants without colour “pattern” of any kind. Instead of dotting the plants, there is nothing to do but to group them naturally without any definite plan, letting the groups run into each other, and varying them here and there with taller plants. A garden of any size could be planted in this way, without the geometry of the ordinary flower garden, and the poor effect of the “botanical” dotty mixed border. As, however, many may not be ready to follow my plan, the following notes on colour, by an excellent flower-gardener who has given much thought to the subject, will, I hope, be useful to them :— One of the most important points in the arrangement of a garden is the placing of the flowers with regard to their colour-effect, and it is one which has been greatly neglected. Too often a garden is an assemblage of plants placed together haphazard, or if any intention be perceptible, as is commonly the case in the bedding system, it is to obtain as great a number as possible of the most violent contrasts; and the result is a hard, garish vulgarity. Then, in mixed borders, one usually sees lines or evenly-distributed spots of colour, wearying and annoying to the eye, and proving how poor an effect can be got by the misuse of the best materials. Should it not be remembered that in setting a garden we are painting a picture—a picture of hundreds of feet or yards instead of so many inches, painted with living flowers and seen by open daylight,—so that to paint it rightly is a debt we owe to the beauty of the flowers and to the light of the sun ; that the colours should be placed with careful forethought and deliberation, as a painter employs them on his picture, and not dropped down in lifeless dabs, as he has them on the palette? HARMONY RATHER THAN CONTRAST.—Splendid harmonies of rich and brilliant colour, and proper sequences of such harmonies, should be the main rule 7. there should be large effects, each well studied and well placed, varying in different portions of the garden scheme. One of the commonest faults is a want of simplicity of intention, or an obvious absence of any definite plan of colouring. Many people have not given any attention to colour-harmony, or have not by nature the gift of perceiving it. Let them learn it by observing some natural examples of happily-related colouring, taking separate families of plants whose members are variously coloured. Some of the best to study would be American Azaleas, \Vallflowers, German and Spanish Iris, Alpine Auriculas, Polyanthus, and Alstroemerias. BREADTH or MAss AND lNTERGROUPING.——It is important to notice that the mass of each colour should be large enough to have a certain dignity, but never so large as to be wearisome; a certain breadth in the masses is also 0 194 THE ENGLISH FLOIVE/t’ GARDEN wanted to counteract the effect of foreshortening when the border is seen from end to end. \Vhen a definite plan of colouring is decided on, it will save trouble if the plants whose flowers are approximately the same in colour are grouped together to follow each other in season of blooming. Thus, in a part of the border assigned to red, Oriental Poppies might be planted among or next to Tritomas, with scarlet Gladioli between both, so that there should be a succession of scarlet flowers, the places occupied by the Gladioli being filled previously with red \Vall- flowers. \VARM COLOURS are not difficult to place: scarlet, crimson, pink, orange, yellow, and warm white are easily arranged so as to pass agreeably from one to the other. PURPLE and LILAC group well together, but are best kept well away from red and pink; they do well with the colder whites, and are seen at their best when surrounded and carpeted with gray-white foliage, like that of Cerastium tomentosum or Cineraria maritima ; but if it be desired to pass from a group of warm colour to purple and lilac, a good breadth of pale yellow or warm white may be interposed. \VHI'l‘IC FLOWERS—Care must be taken in placing very cold white flowers such as lberis correzefolia, which are best used as quite a high light, led up to by whites of a softer character. Frequent repetitions of white patches catch the eye unpleasantly ; it will generally be found that one mass or group of white will be enough in any piece of border or garden arrangement that can be seen from any one point of view. BLUE requires rather special treatment, and is best approached by delicate contrasts of warm whites and pale yellows, such as the colours of double Meadow Sweet, and (linothera Lamarckiana, but rather avoiding the direct opposition of strong blue and full yellow. Blue flowers are also very beautiful when com- pletely isolated and seen alone among rich dark foliage. A PROGRESSION OF COLOUR in a mixed border might begin with strong blues, light and dark, grouped with white and pale yellow, passing on to pink: then to rose colour, crimson, and the strongest scarlet, leading to orange and bright yellow. A paler yellow followed by white would distantly connect the warm colours with the lilacs and purples, and a colder white would combine them pleasantly with low-growing plants with cool—coloured leaves. SIliVl-lRY-l.li.\\'l‘11) PLANTS are valuable as edgings and carpets to purple flowers, and bear the same kind of relation to them as the warm~coloured foliage of some plants does to their strong red flowers, as in the case of the Cardinal Flower and double crimson Sweet \Villiam. The bright clear blue of Forget-me— not goes best with fresh pale green, and pink flowers are beautiful with pale foliage striped with creamy white, such as the variegated forms of Jacob’s-ladder or Iris pseudacorus. A useful carpeting plant, Acmna pulchella, assumes in spring a rich bronze between brown and green which is valuable with \\'all~ flowers of the brown and orange colours. These few examples, out of many that will come under the notice of any careful observer, are enough to indicate what should be looked for in the way of accompanying foliage—such foliage, if well chosen and well placed, may have the same value to the flowering plant that a worthy and appropriate setting has to a jewel. IN SUNNY l’l..\t‘l“.s warm colours should preponderate: the yellow colour of sunlight brings them together and adds to their glowing efl‘ect. A SHADY BORDER, on the other hand, seems best suited for the cooler and more delicate colours. A beautiful scheme of cool colouring might be arranged for a retired spot. out of sight of other brightly-coloured flowers, such as a border near the shady side of any shrubbery or wood that would afford a good back» ground of dark foliage. llere would be the best opportunity for using blue, cool white, palest yellow. and fresh green. A few typical plants are the great Lark- COLOUR IN THE FLOIVER GARDEN 195 spurs, Monkshoods, and Columbines, Anemones (such as japonica, sylvestris, apennina, Hepatica, and the single and double forms of nemorosa), white Lilies, Trilliums, Pyrolas, Habenarias, Primroses, white and yellow, double and single, Dafl'odils, white Cyclamen, Ferns and mossy Saxifrages, Lily of the Valley, and \Yoodruff. The most appropriate background to such flowers would be shrubs and trees, giving an effect of rich sombre masses of dusky shadow rather than a positive green colour, such as Bay Phillyrea, Box, Yew, and Ever- green Oak. Such a harmony of cool colouring, in a quiet shady place, would present a delightful piece of gardening. BEDDED-OUT PLANTS, in such parts of a garden as may require them, may be arranged on the same general principle of related, rather than of violently opposed, masses of colour. As an example, a fine effect was obtained with half— hardy annuals, mostly kinds of Marigold, Chrysanthemum, and Nasturtium, of all shades of yellow, orange, and brown. This was in a finely-designed formal garden before the principal front of one of the stateliest of the great houses of England. It was a fine lesson in temperance, this employment of a simple scheme of restricted colouring, yet it left nothing to be desired in the way of richness and brilliancy, and well served its purpose as a dignified ornament, and worthy accompaniment to the fine old palace. CONTRASTs—How TO BE USED.—The greater effects being secured, some carefully-arranged contrasts may be used to strike the eye when passing; for opposite colours in close companionship are not telling at a distance, and are still less so if interspersed, their tendency then being to neutralise each other. Here and there a charming effect may be produced by a bold contrast, such as a mass of orange Lilies against Delphiniums or Gentians against alpine VVall- flowers; but these violent contrasts should be used sparingly and as brilliant accessories rather than trustworthy principals, CLIMBERS 0N \\'ALLS.—There is often a question about the suitability of variously-coloured creepers on house or garden walls. The same principle of harmonious colouring is the best guide. A warm-coloured wall, one of Bath stone or buff bricks, for instance, is easily dealt with. On this all the red- flowered, leaved, or berried plants look well—Japan Quince, red and pink Roses, Virginian Creeper, Crataegus Pyracantha, and the more delicate harmonies of Honeysuckle, Banksian Roses, and Clematis montana, and F lainmula, while C. Jackmanni and other purple and lilac kinds are suitable as occasional contrasts. The large purple and white Clematises harmonise perfectly with the cool gray of Portland stone; and so do dark-leaved climbers, such as \Vhite Jasmine, Passion Flower, and green Ivy. Red brickwork, especially when new, is not a happy ground colour; perhaps it is best treated with large-leaved climberS—Magnolias, Vines, Aristolochia—to counteract the fidgety look of the bricks and white joints. \Vhen brickwork is old and overgrown with gray Lichens, there can be no more beautiful ground for all colours of flowers from the brightest to the tenderest— none seems to come amiss. COLOUR IN BEDDING-OUT.——\Ve must here put out of mind nearly all the higher sense of the enjoyment of flowers : the delight in their beauty individually or in natural masses; the pleasure derived from a personal knowledge of their varied characters, appearances, and ways, which gives them so much of human interest and lovableness; and must regard them merely as so much colouring matter, to fill such and such spaces for a few months. “’6 are restricted to a kind of gardening not far removed from that in which the spaces of the design are filled in with pounded brick, slate, or shells. The best rule in the arrange— ment of a bedded garden is to keep the scheme of colouring as simple as possible. The truth of this is easily perceived by an ordinary observer when shown a good example, and is obvious without any showing to one who has studied colour effects; and yet the very opposite intention is most commonly seen, to wit, a 196 THE ENGLISH FLOIVEIC GARDEIV garish display of the greatest number of crudely-contrasting colours. How often do we see combinations of scarlet Geranium, Calceolaria, and blue Lobeliar— three subjects that have excellent qualities as bedding plants if used in separate colour schemes, but which in combination can hardly fail to look bad? In this kind of gardening, as in any other, let us by all means have our colours in a brilliant blaze, but never in a discordant glare. One or two colours, used tem- perately and with careful judgment, will produce nobler and richer results than many colours purposely contrasted, or wantonly jumbled. The formal garden that is an architectural adjunct to an imposing building demands a dignified unity of colouring instead of the petty and frivolous effects so commonly obtained by the misuse of many colours. As practical examples of simple harmonies, let us take a scheme of red for summer bedding. It may range from palest pink to nearly black, the flowers being Pelargoniums in many shades of pink, rose, salmon, and scarlet ; Yerbenas, red and pink; and judicious mixtures of Iresine, Alternanthera, Amaranthus, the dark Ajuga, and red-ftfliaged ()xalis. Still finer is a colour scheme of yellow and orange, worked out with some eight varieties of Marigold, Zinnias, Calceolarias, and Nasturtiums——a long range of bright rich colour, from the palest buff and primrose to the deepest mahogany. Such examples of strong warm colouring are admirably suited for large spaces of bedded garden. \\'here a small space has to be dealt with it is better to have arrange- ments of blue, with white and the palest yellow, or of purple and lilac, with gray foliage. A satisfactory example of the latter could be worked out with beds of purple and lilac Clematis, trained over a carpet of Cineraria maritima, or one of the white—foliaged Centaureas, and Heliotropes and purple Verbenas, with silvery foliage of Cerastium, Antennaria, or Stachys lanata. These are some simple examples easily carried out. The principle once seen and understood (and the operator having a perception of colour), modifications will suggest themselves, and a correct working with two or more colours will be practicable; but the simpler ways are the best, and will always give the noblest results. There is a peculiar form of harmony to be got even in varied colours by putting together those of nearly the same strength or depth. As an example in spring bedding, Myosotis dissitillora, Silene pendula (not the deepest shade), and double yellow l’rimrose or yellow l’olyanthus, though distinctly red, blue, and yellow, yet are of such tender and equal depth of colouring, that they work together charmingly, especially if they are further connected with the gray—white foliage of Cerastium.—(}. I. CHAPTER XVII SOME SOURCES OF \VASTE TO a great extent our gardens are laid out in a bad and old- fashioned way. There are so many needless walks, edgings, etc., that men cannot get to work in a simple way. Half the time is lost in “niggling,” cleaning the feet, seeing that the edges are not injured, or repairing them when they are. This effort thus wasted should be turned to good account in the growth of flowers. In many costly places there is no flower-garden— ing at all ; a few wretched plants are stuck out in the parterre every year, and a few stunted hardy flowers are scratched in round the poor shrubbery, but little labour or love is bestowed on the growth of flowers. In many places there are miles of walks bordered by long bare stretches of earth, as cheerful as Woking Cemetery in its early years. The gardener is impotent to turn such a vast waste into a paradise; his time and his thoughts are eaten up by barber’s work—shaving Grass and weeding walks. I went, not long ago, into one of the finest places in England for site and extent, the property of a wealthy peer. I saw six masses of lugubrious Perilla, and as many of yellow Calceolaria,—~saw this at one saddened glance, and then turned for relief to the trees around. The gardeners say that, in consequence of the trouble of this vulgar daubing, and of their other work, they have no time for true gardening. But to form a garden of Roses, or groups of choice shrubs, or beds of Lilies, or of other noble hardy plants, so that the beds may fairly nourish their tenants for a dozen years, are the ends to which all good gardeners’ labour should be directed. Instead of the never-ending scratchings of autumn and spring, we ought to have a thorough preparation of one portion of the flower garden every year, so that it would yield us quiet beauty for many years. “'e should then escape the massing of tender plants, with its great annual cost, its suite of hothouses, and its accompaniment of complete loss of the flowers every autumn. 198 TIIE ENGLISII FLOW/El? GARDEN GRASS.——Then we have the endless shaving of big lawns. The soft turf is the glory of our gardens, but who can say that it is wise to mow forty acres of kept lawn, as some people boast of doing? Soft lawns we want near our houses, and we cannot take too much care of them, but the wide acres of Grass mown in many large country seats would be better if cut as hay. A flowering meadow is one of the most beautiful things in Nature, and our park or garden lawns might be lovely with the Grass growing long and with many flowers in it. The Grass itself should be a beautiful garden. We should see in it, as we often see in an alpine meadow, fair flowers which grow in English as well as in alpine turf. By allow— ing the Grass to grow in spring and till maturity, this phase of the wild garden will be enjoyed, and plants will come up year after year to reward us.1 Lawns for play, and smooth turf among the flower—beds we must have, but in most large gardens something may be gained if the Grass to be frequently mown be restricted to what is essential. A good deal of Grass in pleasure-grounds and among trees is quite as pretty if cut at hay—time. Grass so mown is that which best suits hardy bulbs and other flowers naturalised in the Grass. The leaves of the early bulbs are generally ripe or withered down before mowing. \VALKS. After the Grass come the needless walks. Our own landscape gardeners are a little more sparing with these hideous things than are the French ; but we very often have four times too many walks, which torment the poor gardener by needless and stupid labour. He is always hoeing, and weeding, and salting. The planning of these walks in various elaborate ways has been supposed to have some relation to landscape gardening; but one needless walk often destroys all possibility of good gardening in its vicinity. Walks are essential, but they should be designed simply to go wherever it is necessary they should go; they should be in keeping with the garden near them and with their own use. Flower-beds are often best set in Grass, and those who care to see them will approach them quite as readily on Grass as if hard walks are brought near them. For the three or four months of our dullest season there is little need of frequent resort to flower—beds, but for the rest of the year the turf is better than any walk. I do not mean that there should be no walk to the flower garden, but that every walk not necessary for frequent use should be suppressed. Few have any idea how much they would gain, not merely in labour, but in the beauty of their gardens, by doing away with needless walks. ‘ See Chapter II. SOME SOURCES OF IVASTE 199 GLASS—Among the evils of the bedding system is the need of extensive, costly glass-houses in which to keep the plants all the winter, not one in ten of these plants being as pretty as flowers that are as hardy as the Grass in the field,—like Roses, Carnations, and Pansies. It is absurd to grow Alternantheras in heat, and not to give a place to flowers that require no more heat than the Lilies of the Valley. Glassshouses are useful and charming helps for many purposes, but we may have noble flower gardens without them. To bloom Roses in winter, to ripen fruits that will not,mature in our climate, to enable us to see many fair flowers of the tropics—for these purposes glass—houses are a precious gain ; but for a beautiful flower garden they are needless. Therefore one great source of expense may be saved, and the numerous glass-houses in our gardens may be turned to better use. It would not be true to say that good hardy flower-gardening is cheaper than growing the masses of tender plants that often disgrace our gardens. The splendid variety of beautiful hardy things tempts one to buy, and it is therefore all the more necessary not to waste money in stupid ways. \VATERING. In warmer countries much watering and irrigation are essential. In England, nine seasons out of ten, this fussy and heavy labour is unnecessary, particularly if we grow hardy flowers, and plant in autumn, winter, and early spring, so that the plants may be rooted before the hot days. When watering is necessary, it should be well done; that is, sufficient water should be given to moisten the soil to the full depth it is dug or trenched. The borders and beds should be 3 feet deep; and should be of good soil, so as to be free from drought. From an economical point of View, nothing is more important than the due preparation of the soil by deep trenching. If this be well done in the first instance, and due after—attention be given to mulching, little artificial watering will be required. If mulching be applied as soon as the plants are put out in May, it saves much labour. The advantages of mulching are great. Cocoa-fibre refuse is the neatest mulch; it is clean to use, and is very cheap. The next best material is decayed leaf—soil. This, sifted, also looks very neat, but under bright sunshine it soon shrinks to nothing, and requires renewing. \Vell-rotted stable manure is another good mulch, particularly for plants you wish to feed liberally, like Dahlias. The mowings of lawn Grass is a good mulch for beds, and should not be wasted, especially if you have many recently transplanted shrubs. I myself use with very good results flat pieces of thin sandstone among Carnations and other choice hardy plants. These pieces of stone keep the ground between the plants clean, 200 THE ENGLISH FLOU’ER GARDEJV keep the soil cool and moist, and in winter keep the plants from being thrown up by frost, while, being of a good colour, they are not unpleasant in the beds at any time. I find that a light carpet of alpine flowers under Roses tends to keep the beds moist; and for years my men have not had to use a watering-pot except when planting. Thorough preparation and deep soil do away with the need of any unpleasant mulch. The tufted Pansies, Rockfoils, gray and green Stonecrops which I use among the Roses and Carnations are a living and beautiful “ mulch." FANCY LABELS are a frequent source of waste, especially if stamped so as to suit only one plant. It would in many cases be well to do without labels, except where you grow many kinds of things that differ by slight shades, as Carna- tions and Roses; at least where you wish to know the names of the plants and grow many nearly allied. ' CAST-IRON LABELS; 'l'IIlZ SIMPLEST. The. COIltCDtS Of a garden i are NICA’I‘l-ZS’I‘, AND masr roan Iron usually m a State Of Change; you are snRUns,n01.n HERBACIZOL'SPLANTS, continually adding to and taking AND FOR ALL CASES \VIlliRE T1115 from them; 1..\m:.1. HAS TO m; rlxuo IN THE GROUND. n --—-u_1 '11-----»- : v new plants are intro- duced ; a severe winter kills a number of shrubs, which you determine not to replant. Fashion changes the garden vegetation too, and then the permanent labels, cast and burnt into hardware and cemented in cast—iron, are thrown aside. I prefer a label which can be used again, such as a cast-iron label of “T shape” or, in other words. a slip of cast-iron with an oblong head slightly thrown back. These are cast very cheaply in the iron districts. You have to paint them and write the names of the trees on them when they come to hand; but that can be readily done by a handy painter. who will probably be glad of such a job in the winter. In a large garden, where much naming is required, the best way is to train a youth who is likely to remain in the place; and I have done that in a few weeks by placing a copy of the desired kind of letters before him. I find it an advantage to give the label a coat of copal varnish when the letters are dry. and generally use white letters on a black ground and give three coats of black over one of red lead. These are the best labels for the shrub and choice young tree vegetation of a pleasure-ground or flower garden. They will last for twenty years. and if you cease to cultivate the plants to which they belong, the labels may be repainted. You can get one. hundred of them for the price of two or three of the costly permanent labels often used in pleasure gardens. SOME SOURCES OF FVASTE 201 With big trees it is always a mistake to use a ground label. The best labels for large trees are made of pieces of tin about 4% inches by 3% inches. About half an inch of the upper edge should be bent at a right angle so as to form a little coping for the label, two holes should be made just beneath the little angle, through which a strong copper wire should be put and firmly nailed to the tree. Place it so as to be easily read, and about 5% feet or 6 feet from Qumus the ground. Paint it dark brown or black with mficc—M’S‘ white letters. It will last for many years. All THE smpuasr AND BEST labels inserted in the grass in pleasure-grounds LABEL FOR TREES. are liable to be pulled up by mowers or others, and in this way to get lost. The labels on the bole are safe from such mishaps. For Roses, and any tall or open shrub, perhaps the best label is a common wooden one about 3 inches long, with a hole at one end, through which a copper wire may be passed; the name should be written on while the paint is moist, and the copper wire bound round the branch rather loosely so as to allow for expan- sion. FOR ALL HALF-HARDY BEDDING PLANTS . POSITION FOR TREE ordinary wooden labels are at once the most LABEL. convenient and the simplest. If they are re- quired to last, dip the ends in tar or pitch. In most gardens it is the practice to write the name at the part that goes in the ground, and to go on from thence to the top—a bad way, for the label always begins to decay at the base, and thus the beginning of the name is lost, while the end of it may be quite legible. Always begin 2‘0 write it at [/25 10/. This may seem a small matter, but it is important where many wooden labels are used. After a little practice it becomes as easy to write from the top as from the other end. In writing the names always begin as near the top as possible. FANCY EDGINGS of cast stone or tile ware to beds and walks are costly, ugly, needless, and a great source of waste. The most common of living edgings is Box, though it is far less used now than formerly. \Vhere exactness has to be adhered to, there is nothing equal to Box, provided the blanks are made up and it is kept in good order by the shears. A neglected Box edging mars the appearance of a garden, and those who cannot afford to keep it properly should dispense with it. A beautiful evergreen edging is formed by the Irish Ivy, where carefully grown as in the public ScarletOflk. 202 THE EZVGLISH FLOIVER GARDEN gardens of Paris. A broad, well-kept edging of Irish Ivy has a fine effect in various situations, but neglect soon mars any Ivy edging. Some hardy plants make good edgings. Among the best are double Daisies, Thrift, Arabis, Auriculas, Primroses, Violets, and Gentianella. All these are easily increased. Enough is hardly made of these plants as edgings. Crimson and white double Daisies, for example, are charming for a long while in early summer; they increase fast and are easily grown. Burnt tiles with a head on the top are often used, because they are easy to procure and cheap; but they are useless, for the frost breaks them up in a couple of years unless they are very well burnt. They are always hard and ugly, and should never be used. A thin tile, made of fireclay and glazed, is also used, but, as a rule, all the burnt clay edgings are bad. Terra—cotta tiles stand fairly well, but they are expensive. Stout blue slate, with sawn edges, is enduring ; it is expensive at first, but its great lasting properties are a compensa— tion ; it can be had in long lengths and is easily laid, but it is ugly. \V'here hard stone is abundant it is excellent for edgings. In all quarries there is generally a quantity of refuse which might be used for edgings. If they are nearly the same thickneSs, pieces of various shapes and sizes may be used. The charm of rough stone edgings is due to their colour when clothed with small Mosses. They require no hard rigid setting, as they look much better set simply. Unlike the cast tiles they are none the worse if they fall out of line, and are easily removed and easily re—set. They are the cheapest of all edgings and give by far the best effect. Edgings are best made of the natural stone which abounds in various counties, or of a line of flints. An edging in a garden may be beautiful by reason of dwarf rock plants being associated with it. If you have an ugly stiff tile edging, you would hardly think of putting an alpine llower near it ; but if, on the other hand, you have any good natural stone edging, it forms the most delightful place for rock—plants. If the stones are irregular in size, sink them partly in the ground, as in the case of a flint edging. You can have a whole flora of pretty plants running in and out among these stones, and spreading into gravel walk or soil. There is no difficulty in growing numbers of alpine flowers in this way. In all borders of hardy and alpine plants, a good plan is to let tufts of vigorous dwarf plants grow a little into the walk. Make the edging so that it will welcome such out-growths. S'I‘Ui‘t‘o .\.\'l) S'l‘oNlC \\'.»\s"1‘1i.——lt is a costly folly to make a flower garden like a cemetery, with costly terracing work—where terraces are not required, and where the natural form of the earth is SOfllE SOURCES OF IVASTE 203 far fitter than any other form for a beautiful flower garden,—vases, fountain basins, sculpture of the poorer sort, and lastly, pounded stones and gravel, set out instead of flowers,——these are among the sources of great waste. The cost of all this rubbish should be laid out in good plants and good ways of growing them. The money spent on it in a single county (now and then, indeed, in a single place) would form many lovely gardens. If we ruin ourselves through extravagance in gardening, let it be for living and beautiful things. PATENTED ARTICLES.—In this age of mechanism there are inventors who try to worry us out of our simplest, pleasantest little tasks by inventing many things that nobody wants. Stop them at the garden gate! Among the ugliest things in gardens are the remains of various too clever contrivances, rusty, useless, forgotten. At a show in London lately there was a teapot which saved the trouble of pouring out a cup of tea! Some garden inventions are as much called for as this, though it would not be fair to condemn those that really save labour, like a mowing machine. It is the invention of contrivances that instead of helping really add to our confusion that we should guard against. N o contrivance should be admitted unless we know it is essential to our work. If it be ugly or showy in use, it should never be used. RABBITS—The most extravagant of all waste is the preservation of the rabbit. The injury rabbits do to young trees alone is in- calculable ; indeed, where they prevail there is no chance of getting up cover except at an enormous cost. Rabbits eat down the ever- green cover so necessary to the existence of pheasants in the way of shelter in winter. Pheasants will not remain in a wood where there is not shelter of this kind ; and to nothing are they more partial than to Holly, which ought to abound in every wood, but which rabbits destroy first. Hares and pheasants many people can never have enough of, and the existence of both is directly interfered with by the rabbit, while expense is incurred year after year in making up losses in plantations, and for wire—netting and labour, etc., in protecting the trees. Hares should be encouraged at the expense of rabbits, and the extermination of the latter is not a difficult matter. Few, even among those who suffer most by their ravages, seem to know how much rabbits injure woodland, pasture, meadow, and arable land, as well as gardens. Hungry rabbits will eat almost any green thing. As a rule they prefer to nibble over a pasture that contains short sweet grass, and a proportion of Clover, dandelion, and daisies ; but in and about a wood where they are numerous the grass, from being closely and constantly eaten off, gradually disappears, and at the approach of winter is succeeded by moss, a very cold, watery, and innutritious 204 THE ENGLISH FLOW’ER G'Ailt’DE/V substitute ; then rabbits are driven to seek food from sources other than grass, and the bark of small trees, the leaves, stalks, and bark of shrubs, and the protruding roots of forest trees are eaten almost indiscriminately. Among evergreen shrubs, Rhododendrons and Box are generally avoided, but I have known newly-planted Rhodo- dendrons to be partly eaten by rabbits. The Elder is distasteful, and so are American Azaleas. I have frequently seen Yew trees barked ; Mahonias are devoured as soon as planted ; and in severe weather Periwinkle, which is named amongst rabbit-proof plants. is generally eaten to the ground. Some of the bulbs and flowering plants may well escape in winter, because they are not seen above ground, but their immunity consists in their inaccessibility at a hungry time—«J. 5. All who really care for the beauty of woodland or garden should spare no effort to get rid of this pest. Those who suffer most are people in and near small estates, where “ preserving " is so badly done that rabbits alone remain. Estates surrounded by farmers do not suffer so much, as the farmer must keep down the rabbits to secure his crops. \Vinged game of all kinds is helpful to the land- owner and farmer, by reason of the insects and grubs they destroy, so that all who care for the true game should encourage them, and keep down the rabbit at all seasons. In my 117M Gara’rlz a Scotch correspondent gives a list of rabbit—proof plants, and among these, to my surprise, I now see “ Hollies." I have seen hundreds of Hollies destroyed in woods by being barde by rabbits. The one thing worth saying about rabbits is “ destroy them utterly. or confine them to some waste where they can do little harm." THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN FLOWERS, FLOWERING SHRUBS, AND TREES OF THE OPEN AIR Abelia..—Beautiful shrubs, little grown in our country, and requiring either walls or favourable districts. The best known is the Rock Abelia (A. rupestris), a Chinese ‘ shrub. blooming in early autumn, the flowers borne in pairs, and of a delicate pale pink. a raised place and in light soils, as it is then less liable to injury during winter. It is always best to plant it in » A. uniflora is of like habit, and also comes 1 from China. The Three-flowered Abelia ‘ iA. triflora) comes from N. India, and is I less hardy than the Chinese kinds, but it may be grown against a wall, which it will clothe in a few years. It bears fragrant pink flowers in clusters at the end of summer. A. floribunda is rather too tender for the open air, except in the mildest parts of the country. It is ever- green, and bears clusters of rose-purple flowers. “here it can be grown, it makes a good wall shrub. In mild districts in the southern parts of England and Ireland these shrubs sometimes do well on the open lawn ; but, about London, do better On a wall. Abobra. viridiflora, a fragile South American twiner, belonging to the Cucumber family, of little garden value, easily raised from seed. It is graceful in habit. but does not seem to succeed in our climate generally. Abronia. (Sam! Verbena).—A small genus ofCalifornian annuals or perennials of a dwarf trailing habit, and bearing showy blossoms in dense Verbena-like clusters. Four kinds are known in gar— dens, viz. A. arenaria, known also as A. latifolia, a perennial having trailing stems and dense clusters oflemon-yellow flowers, with a honey-like fragrance; A. umbellata, an annual also with succulent trailing stems and clusters of rosy—purple, slightly fragrant flowers ; A. fragrans, a perennial more erect in growth, forming large branching tufts from 1% ft. to 2 ft. in height, and bearing umbels of white flowers which expand late in the afternoon, and then i l emit a delicate vanilla-like perfume; A. Crux Maltze, a pretty species with white scented flowers. A. arenaria and A. umbellata succeed best in rather poor, light, and dry soil ; in richer ground they grow too rank. The position best suited to them is one fully exposed—an open, well-drained border or rockwork. A. fragrans succeeds best in friable soil, and is larger than the others. The pro— pagation of the species can only be effected by seed, which in favourable seasons may be obtained from A. arenaria and A. umbellata, but A. fragrans does not ripen seed in this country. The seeds often remain dormant some time before 3 vegetating ; those of A. umbellata germin- i I I I ate more readily. The plants flower in summer and autumn, and being pretty in bloom, may be used with good effect in the varied flower garden, somewhat like dwarf V erbenas. Abutilon.—Plants mostly requiring greenhouse temperature in winter, but growing freely out-of-doors in summer,— a graceful aid in the flower garden. A. Darwini and its forms, as well as the varieties related to A. striata, under favourable conditions, grow from 4 ft. to 8 ft. in height. They can be made bushy by stopping, and they flower better than they do in pots. They are useful among the taller and more graceful plants for the flower garden, and are easily raised from seed and cuttings. A. vitifolia is a very handsome wall-plant in mild districts. A. Sellowianum marmoratum is a fine variety. Among the best in cultivation are the following, and new varieties are often raised: Admiration, Anna Crozy, Buisson d‘Or, Darwini robustum, Darwini majus, Elegantissima, Grandiflorum, Lemoinei, Lady of the Lake, Leo, Orange Perfection, Boule de Neige, Delicata, Pactole, Darwini tesselatum, Thomsoni variegata, and vexillarium variegatum. Acacia, False (Roéz'zzz'a Rose). A. Julibrissin (5271’ Rose) with large 206 ACACIA and elegant leaves. By confining it to a single stem and using young plants, or plants cut down every year, we get an erect stem covered with leaves THE ENGLISH FLOIVE/C GARDEN Al‘AN'l‘llOI.II\IO.\' or protecting plant for choice hardy ()rchids and 'l‘rilliums, or such plants as graceful as a Fern, and pretty amidst low-growing flowers. The leaves are slightly sensitive: on fine sunny days they spread out fully and afford a pleasant shade; on dull ones the leaflets fall down. Seed of A. julibrissinmor the Silk Rose, as it is called by the Persians, in con- sequence of its silky stamens—as easily obtained, and it is much better raised from seed, as we get vigorous young plants which are to the flower garden what an elegant Fern is to the greenhouse. l’ersia. A. lophantha. —~ This elegant plant, though not hardy, grows freely in the open air in summer. The beauty of its leaves and its quick , growth in the open air give some graceful verdure among flowers. By confining 1t l l to a single stem and using it young, we ' get the fullest size and grace of which the leaves are capable. It may easily be raised from seed. liy sowing it early in the year, it may be made fit for planting out in early summer; but plants a year old or so, strong and well hardened off for , planting out at the end of May, are best. It would be well to raise an annual stock, as it is useful for room decoration. Australia. A. Rose (/i’n/Iz'm'n /H'.\;,/71'z//}I). Acaana.——'l‘liougli not pretty in their flowers, if we except the crimson spines that give a charm to the little New" Zealand A. microphylla, these plants have a neat habit ofgrowth that renders them deserving of culture. For very dwarf carpets in the rock—garden and, now and then, to cover dry parts of borders and tufts on the margins of borders, they are very useful. A. argentea, with glaucous leaves, is well worth a place among rock—plants. A. microphylla (/i’n.i;i/-.v/>z'/m/ {law/m. —'l‘his spreads into dense tufts no taller than Moss, and in summer and autumn becomes thickly strewn with showy and singular globes of spines. It is easily increased by division. is perfectly hardy, grows in ordinary soil, but thrives much the best in soil of a line sandy and some what moist character. lts home is on bare level parts of the rocluvork. and it is also good as a border plant or even as an edging plant in soils where it thrives. ()ccasionally it may be used with a singularly good effect to form a carpet beneath larger plants not thickly placed. It would form a good ground l of these. I 3 . ' x S“ 3“ . GI. .‘i g , .40 [\(IICNA I\llCI\‘()l'll\'l.l..\. in the bog bed. landize. ‘ A. millefolia. is very unlike either of the preceding. It has finely-divided pale-green foliage, and is graceful for hanging down a bank. Its defect is its unsightly fruiting spikes (not heads, as in the others). lts points will adhere to anything they touch, and the result is that seedlings come up in the most unexpected spots. There are many other kinds in cultivation, such as A. ovalifolia and A. sarmentosa, but those mentioned are distinct enough and sufficiently represent the genus. A. pulchella, though never showy in floral and fruiting characters, is worthy a place. Any soil or situation will suit it, but the best position we ever saw it in was when growing from interstices of stone by the steep side of a sunken rocky path. lts branches, rooting as they went, were covered throughout their entire length with pretty bronzy leaves, and suspended in graceful festoons over the face of the stone, even to the rocky path beneath, in wild profusion, often measur« ing as much as 7 ft. or 8 ft. in length, the result oflittle more than one year‘s growth. lts flowers are inconspicuous. Acantholimon (/‘r/Mv/y fluff/i.» liastern plants e\tcnding from the east of tireece to \\'estern 'l‘hibet, and hav— ing their headquarters in Persia. The flowers resemble those of the Statice and .\rnieria, but the habit of the Acantho- liinon at once distinguishes it from either .\cantholiinons do, indeed. form branching, cushion—like tufts, somewhat after the style of 'l‘hrift: but the leaves. instead of being soft and Grass—like, are rigid and spiny. .\;1’11.H.-\. Novze-an— A( ‘ANT H US THE EA’GLISH FLOIVE/t’ GARDEJV ACI-IILLEA 207 AND POSITIONr~nAXS known to us. they are dwarf evergreen rock- garden and choice border plants. \\'e have had the following species for years. but have not been very successful in pro- pagating any except A. gluinaceum, which is the freest—growing of the set : the others are very slow-growing. Cuttings taken C t'i:i‘t'Ri: ‘ soil. suburbs of London. \Vlien placed on the . lawn singly or in groups, the greatest care should be taken to give them deep, good They are not difficult to increase by careful diViSion of the roots in autumn or ‘ winter, and may be raised from seed in a ; gentle hot—bed, or out-of—doors with other : perennials. off in late summer and kept in a cold a , ‘ not numerous: A. hirsutus (S. hurope): frame during winter make nice little plants in two years, but by layering one gets larger plants sooner. prefer warm. sunny situations in sandy loam. Few seem to have any idea of how All are hardy and 1 much is lost by having many of our‘ herbaceous and alpine plants in pots. There are three species in cultivation—~A. glumaceum. venustum, and androsaceuni. but the introduction of others is much to be desired. A. Kotschyi is a handsome 1 . species. with long spikes rising well above , the leaves and numerous white flowers: ‘ A. melananthum has short. very dense, capitate spikes, the limb of the calyx being . bordered with dark violet or black: A. Plirygium is a variety of A. venustum. but is more robust. with longer spikes. Acanthus i,livu‘x—[nu‘c/z .*A long- neglected group of hardy plants. with singularly tine foliage and a stately habit when well grown. It comes to us mostly from the countries round the Medi- terranean. and is hardy. Though the foliage may sufl‘er now and then. the roots do not seem to perish. CL‘IJ‘L'RE AND PUSITION.—Tl]€ plants are not so showy for the mixed border as other perennialsbut when they flower they possess a peculiar grace which more than compensates for this : and they are worth growing for their foliage alone. Their tine habit and foliage make them valuable for planting on the turf, either singly or in groups. but best in groups. The grouping should be graceful, the plants not dotted about in a geometrical manner, but irregu- larly. and not too close together. On rocky banks, about ruins. or on terrace gardens of the less formal kind, they look i very well. They will live in shade: to flower well they should have full sun. The fine form of the leaves, and their leathery texture, have made the Acanthus much admired as a house—plant, as it is easily grown in a window, in which position we have seen it flower. These plants only require to be planted in any kind of soil in order to grow freely. but THE HARDY SPECIES introduced are A. syriacus (Syria): A. mollis (S.Europe); A. spinosus (Turkey) ; A. longifolius ACANTH US. “Dalmatiaiz A. spinosissimus (SE. Europe. The fine bold kind known as A. latifolius (yvz.—lusitanicus) is thought to be a variety of the oldest cultivated species, A. mollis, but as a garden plant is wholly distinct from it in size and appearance, and is more valuable. The plants vary from 1%, ft. to 4 ft. in height according to the richness of the soil. \Vhen in flower in warm districts and on ‘ good soils, they may attain nearly 6 ft. in attain fair stature and their best bloom on . warm. deep soil—a free sandy loam, or any deep and open soil. Clay they do poorly on. not flowering freely or at all— we mean bad clay like that in the northern height, and in this state a good specimen is one of the handsomest of plants. Aceranthus diphyllus.—Synonymous with Epimedium dipliylluin, a Japanese speCies. Aceras (ll/(m ()rr/zz's;. A small genus of terrestrial Orchids of no garden value. Achillea Cl] 17/017, Mirrotu).—A numer— 208 ACHILLEA THE ENGLISH FLOW/Elf GARDEN ACHILLEA ous family of hardy plants spread through Northern Asia, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Hungary, etc., but more in Southern than in Central or Northern Europe. In the Alps and Pyrenees numerous species are found. A careful selection is very useful for garden culture. The plants vary in height from 2 in. to 4 ft. Their flowers are pale lemon, yellow, and white, but rarely pink or rose. A. Millefolium rubra is a fine plant when grown in poor soil ; A. tomentosa is charming on dry gravelly soil. A. l’tarmica fl.-pl. (a double variety of the Sneezewort) is a handsome plant with snow—white flowers, but hard to keep within bounds. It should be lifted every year and replanted in clumps. Perhaps twenty varieties of this large family are available as border plants. A. Eupatorium is a noble plant, bearing very large corymbs of yellow flowers. A. zegyptiaca is, perhaps, the most graceful variety. A. pectinata is a pretty snow-white flowered plant, which should be treated as an alpine, and grown almost in gravel ; it is a native of Hungary. A. Clavennze, a silvery Austrian species, is one of the most striking of the family. Its leaves are divided into club-shaped divisions. \Vhen planted with Trifolium rubrum or Ajuga purpurea it has a charming effect. CULTURE AND Pos1'r10N.- It is of the easiest possible culture, growing freely, and, with the exception of the dwarfer mountain species, increases even too freely in any soil. Some of the large kinds are fine plants for the choicest borders or groups, as A. Eupatorium. The alpine species, such as A. tomentosa and A. Aizoon, are. well suited for the rock- garden, while the coarser, very pretty- growing white kinds, though untit for; garden culture, are strikingly effective in flower when naturalised in rough shrub- heries and such places. A. aegyptiaca may be, as the name indicates, an Egyptian plant, but is prob- ably a native of Crete. It has beautifully cut, white silvery leaves, and is of compact growth ; the flowers are bright yellow, raised on stems about 15 in. high, and it would be a desirable plant if only for its foliage. It is hardy. and a good plant in the warm border. A. ageratoides.» Originally inn-mlueetl into the country under the name of Anthemis Aizoon. It is a dwarf, compact— growing, silvery plant, with narrow leaves arranged in dense rosettes, with margins exquisitely crimped. The flowers are produced singly on stalks about (i in. or 8 in. high, and are pure white, and of large size. In many respects the gem of the genus. Arock-garden plant. Greece. A. aurea, a native of the Levant, is frequently confused with the foregoing species, but is quite distinct. Its habit of growth is tufted, not creepinO‘. Its leaves are larger, and its flower-stems attain a height of at least 15 in. The flowers are a golden yellow, and are produced in the autumn as well as the early summer. It is somewhat tender, and is now rarely met with. A. Clavennee.—A fine old plant with hoary leaves, deeply jagged at the margin. Of dwarf tufty habit of growth. Flowers white, in corymbs about 9 in. to 12 in. high. _ It is a native of Carinthia and the Austr1an Alps. Under cultivation it loves dry sandy soil. In strong loam it rarely survives a winter without protec- tion. A rock-garden 0r edging plant, and also suited for beds. A. Eupatorium (sometimes called A. [vi/Ift'ndi/ln) is a tall—growing, vigorous, herbaceous plant, somewhat woody in its lower growth. Its flowering corymbs are flat, bright yellow in colour, and elevated on stout stems to a height of 3 ft. to 4 ft. : they retain their beauty and freshness for at least two months. This is admirably adapted for a shrubbery border, where its brilliant yellow flowers and its erect habit At'llll.l.li.\ l“.L‘l‘.‘\'l‘01\‘lL‘M (CASPIAX MILFOILT. of growth show to wonderful advantage amongst the evergreen foliage. It is a native of the shores of the Caspian Sea, and is one of the finest of perennials. It is very easily increased by division, and is worthy of good culture and position. It would go well with groups of the nobler hardy plants, whether deserving the name for their foliage or flowers. A. Millefolium rosea t/\)().\:V law-me a lovely plant with rose~coloured flowers of so deep at tint as to come near crimson. It is a strong grower, height is ACHILIEA 711E E.'VGL[SH FLOIVEA’ GARDEN ACONI’I‘UM 209 2 ft.. and blooms freely. It deserves a place in every herbaceous border. There are such a number of species so closely related to the Milfoil, that it is needless to specify them. They may have a dis- tinctive specific character, but for cultural purposes they may be taken as one. A. Ptarmica. (Silvescruorl) is fairly dis— tributed through Britain as an upland woodland plant, somewhat meagre and scattered in its native habitat, but when introduced into garden culture becoming a very showy and vigorous border plant, of some 2 ft. in height, with pure white . flowers in corymbs. The double variety l l i 1 l 1 \A. Ptarmica fl.—pl.) is one of the loveliest - white flowers we possess, and as a border plant of free growth and perfect hardiness has few rivals; it is worth a place among plants grown for cutting. A. rupestris (Rec/c l’rzn'o-Iu).——.—\1nong the dwarfer species this is one of the best, forming low tufts covered with pretty pure white flowers. Capital for the rock—garden or borders, growing well in poor sandy soil. A. serrata.——.~\ distinct species of dwarfish habit; height about 15 in.; leaves white, with adpressed hairs; flowers in corymbs. a good clear white. Alps of Central Europe. There IS a double form, but it is not so good as the ‘ double Sneezewort. A. tomentosa. stands those with yellow flowers. first amongst Of creeping ‘ habit, its flower-stems scarcely exceed a i height of 9 in., and its flowers are a bright yellow, produced in numbers in ‘ the month of June. Its foliage is much divided, and forms a dense carpet of‘ bright green. Rock-garden and borders; not in wet places. A. umbellata. is a dwarf compact grower of a tufty habit, scarcely exceeding 8 in. in height, the whole surface of leaf and stem being densely covered by short hairs of silvery whiteness. This pecu- liarity has given it an introduction into the flower garden. border or rock-plant. The flowers are white. but, owing to the silvery character of the plant, they are inconspicuous. Greece. A neat and attractive , Achlys {Oregon dizzy Apjfi/c,.—Only 7 one species, A. triphylla, is in cultivation. It is a North American plant, belonging to the Barberry family, and of doubtful value. Achyrachaena mollis.—An annual Composite from California; of little value for the garden. Achy‘rocline.—The only species, A. Saundersoni, is a small shrubby plant of the Composite family, having small leaves covered with a cottony material; ' of doubtful hardiness and merit. AciS.——-A small genus of bulbous natives of South Europe, of which some three or four species are in cultivation. The best known and prettiest is A. autumnalis, a very slender—leaved little bulb, with stems rising 3 in. or 4 in. high, and bearing a couple of flowers that may be described as delicate pink Snowdrops, drooping elegantly on short reddish footstalks. They are of a deep red colour round the seed-vessel, and bloom in autumn before the leaves appear. It is a gem for the rock-garden, where it should be planted in a warm soil and a sunny position, and sheltered with a few stones, on which it would look very well springing from a carpet of delicate feeble- rooting Sedum or other dwarf plant. The other kinds are A. trichophylla, rosea, and hyemalis, all of which will thrive in a fine sandy soil, but are as yet so rare as to be worthy of the best position and care. Mr. Elwes doubts if any of these plants will thrive in the open air in England. In the nurseries at Edinburgh, Acis autum- nalis used to thrive in the open air in fine sandy soil. Aconite (A 50122721111). Aconite, Winter (Emm‘lzz'x lzymza/z'x). Aconitum (Ahab/loadi—An im- ACUNIT L'I-I .‘JA I‘ELLL'S (MONKSHOOD). 210 ACORUs‘ THE EA'GLISH [“LOII'E/t’ GAA’DEA' ADAM ’s NEEDLE portant family, though dangerous from i the flowers are desired for preservation its poisonous roots. There are too many names —— not so many species. and. judiciously placed, the best are of much value for our orardens. CULTURE AND is important, and few would risk their being planted where the roots could be by any chance dug up by mistake for edible roots, as they are so poisonous. Nevertheless, some of the kinds are so handsome and stately when in bloom. that they are worthy of a place beside the finest hardy plants; as. for example. the blue and white A. versicolor. which is a beautiful object in the good soil and partial shade of many a cottage garden. Almost all the kinds may be easily natur— alised in copses or shrubberies away from the garden proper, or beside streamlets or in openings in rich bottoms. The best kinds are A. l\'apellus and its forms. versicolor, and others : A. chinense. A. autumnale. A. japonicum. and A. tauricum; A. Lycoctonum is a yellow— flowered and vigorous species. All are tall plants. from 3 ft. to 5 ft. high: flowering from July to September. A. l’ortunei, the old chinense of gardens. is the best for late blooming. Acorus (Smurf 19/43): A small family of waterside or marsh plants. occasionally cultivated. and of wide distribution. The Sweet l’lag is fond of rather stiff moist soil, and may be planted either on the margin of water or in the water itself. liasily multiplied. like the Iris. by division. Acorus Calamus (Sweet Flag) is a marsh or waterside plant. now naturalised in most parts of Europe. A variety has gold-striped leaves, and has been called A. japonicus folis aureo—striatis. A. gramineus (Grass—leaved Acorns) is a species with a slender creeping rhizome covered with numerous Grass—like leaves. from 4 in. to (i in. in length. a native of China and Japan. There is a variety with white—streaked leaves. This plant is often seen in the little bronze trays of water-plants in Japanese gardens and houses. The plants look pretty on the margins of fountain-basins. AcrocliniumrsA. roseum. the only species. is a pretty half-hardy annual from \Vestern Australia. It grows over 1 foot high and bears pretty rosy-pink flowers. which. owing to their cliafliness. are used as “ everlasting “ flowers. Seeds should be sown in frames in March. and the seedlings planted at the end of April or early in May in a warm border: or the seeds may be sown in the open ground ‘ If in tine rich soil at the end of April. i scarcely out of the bud state. ‘ best in a warm sunny border. in good PosITIoN.—l’osition ‘ as everlastings. it will be well to gather them when fresh and young.—some when It does open and well-enriched soil. This annual might be made graceful use of in mixed beds. There is a white variety, and the two look well when mixed. Actaaa. (Bmw/wvy. Her/I C/n‘z’s/tw/ltv". —A small genus and not very important. Plants rather tall. 3 ft. to 6 ft., thriving in free soil; spikes, white and long, with showy berries which fruit freely. The white Baneberry has white berries with red footstalks. The var. rubra of A. spicata has showy fruit: the plants are best suited for rich bottoms in the wild . garden. as the foliage and habit are good. The flower is somewhat short-lived in the . ordinary border. and they are somewhat coarse in habit. A. spicata tcommon Baneberry). A. racemosa (Black Snake— ‘ root). A. alba (white Baneberry). having white berries with red stalks. and one or two American forms of the common Baneberry are the kinds in cultivation. Actinella.——A small genus of North American Composite plants of which there are three kinds in gardens. They are all dwarf-growing plants with yellow flowers. The finest is A. grandiflora. a native of Colorado. a dwarf alpine plant with flower-heads 3 in. in diameter. It is more or less branched. and grows from 6 in. to o in. high. The other species. A. llrandiger and A. scaposa. are somewhat similar. They are all perennial. and thrive in an open warm border of light soil. . Actinidia..——Climbing summer-leating shrubs from Japan and China. little known in gardens. They do best in warm rich soil. Three species are grown now. A. Kolomikta. polygama. and volubilis. They all have climbing or twining stems and bear waxy white flowers. A. Kolo- . mikta grows in a garden at Southampton. and the flowering specimens sent to 17/5 (fa/“(I’m were beautiful and distinct. This species should be grown against a wall or against a buttress or tree trunk placed against the wall. on which the stems support themselves. The leaves of A. Kolomikta are brightly tinted in autumn. and the flowers of A. polygama are fragrant. A. volubilis is frce~grow— ing and has small white flowers. Actinomeris. Coarse~growing North American plants of the Composite family. A. Squarrosa and A. helianthoides are the kinds known in gardens. Adam’s Needle . than». ADAMSIA THE ENGLISH FLOIVE/t’ GARDEZV ADIAN'I‘UM 21! Adamsia. (Past/Ih'nia). Adder’s Tongue (Uplziog/oxyzmz). Adder’s Tongue, Yellow (Ezyi/zro- Izz'zmz zrmt‘rimmmzl. Adenophora (Gland Raf/flower).- Elegant plants of the Campanula Order, not many of which are in cultivation. leaves. The thick fleshy roots of the Adenophora revel in a strong rich loam, and like a moderately damp subsoil; they are impatient of re- moval, and should "- not be increased by division. Unlike the Platy- codons. they produce their seeds freely, and the seedlings reproduce very constantly the ’4 characteristics of the parent. I They vary in height from 18 in. to over 3 ft., and are well suited for the mixed border. Flowering in summer. Adenostylis.—Small-growing Compo- site plants of little garden interest. Kinds in cultivation—A. Petasites, pyrenaica, and alpina. all natives of Europe. Adiantum <’illaz'drvz-lzdz'rFL’r/z, .— Some of the species ofthis lovely genus of Fern are quite hardy. The soil best adapted to their growth is a rough fibry peat, j Mostly from Siberia and Dahuria, and .‘ generally blue 1n colour. most distinct spec1es are A. communis, Some of the A. coronata, A. liliifolia, A. Lamarcki, A. stylosa. and A. pereskiazfolia. In these occur slight variations in colour and size of flower. and in the form of the radical ADIAXTL'M I’EDATL‘M (THE BIRD’s FOOT MAIDEN-HAIR). rather liberally mixed with sand and lumps of broken stone or brick. A. pedatum. the fine American kind, might be usefully employed for forming a carpet for other shade-loving plants. It is also excellent for association in the wild garden with the more beautiful wood-flowers, such as Trillium, Hepatica, blue Anemone, and the like. The fronds rise from a' creeping rhizome, and care must be taken to plant it where it is not likely to be disturbed. Like all Adiantums, it is fond of moisture while growing, but care must always be taken to provide plenty of drainage, as stagnant moisture around its roots would speedily prove fatal. A. Capillus~veneris. the British Maiden-hair Fern, succeeds best in a very sheltered, warm position; for instance, in a little nook at the foot of a shady wall, associ- ated with some hardy plants equally moisture-loving. In such a position it ought to thrive well, and it would be easy and advisable to protect it with some portable covering during severe winters. Its native habitat is among the sheltered rocks of Cornwall, Devon, and “'ales, and in various parts of Ireland; there- 2I2 ADLUMIA THE Eth?L/SII FLOIVE/t’ G:1/L’1)EA\Y ADONIS fore some idea may be formed of the sort i and not very striking or ornamental in of climate in which it luxuriates. a great liking for damp, warm walls, which it speedily covers with verdure. There are several varieties or forms of this Maiden-hair, among which Adiantuni Ca~ pillus—veneris incisum is a dis- tinct kind, found in Ireland. The pinnules ofthis are much more divided than those of the type. A. Capillus—ven- eris rotundatum, found in the Isle of Man, is also a beauti- ful though variable variety. The fronds are narrower and rounder than those of the type. A. (,‘apillus-veneris Footi, a large form, which sometimes grows to 1 foot in height, has fronds beautifully cut and divided. The Corn- wall variety (cornubiense) is a tine plant and very distinct from the others, but is as It has yet somewhat rare. A. C.—v. I. u dde in an nian um is a crested variety. A. C.-v. magniticutn is a fine form with an A. farleyense-like port. Adlumia. tC/fm/uflg Fizz/zz‘ft>;;1’).—~(liie species only (A. cirrhosa) is known. It is a rapid grower, and soon covers the object against which it is placed. lts Maiden-hair Fern-like leaves are borne in profusion on the slender twiningi stems, aml the blossoms, which are white and about 1 in. long, are also borne very freely. There is a variety with purple flowers t.\. cirrhosa purpureal, which if grown with the type forms a pleasingcontrast. It is strictly a biennial: that is, it makes growth one year, tlowers the next. and then dies, but it bears seed so profusely~- the seed coming up yearafter year without being sown —that it may well claim to be a perennial. It is a native of North America, and was formerly known under the name of Corydalis fungosa. It requires a warm and good '; rather soil to make it worth having. and its‘ place is trailing over a shrub or twiggy branch, placed either against a wall or in the open. Adonis. l‘lants belonging Ranunculus or Buttercup family. They are chietly natives of corn-fields in Southern liurope and \\'estern .-\sia. are dwarf in stature. with finely-divided leaves, and red, yellow, or straw—coloured tlowers. There are about fifteen or six- to the teen species. most of which are annuals, ; appearance; consequently, with the ex- .»\lVO.\'lS VERNALIS. ception of two or three fine kinds, they are seldom seen in gardens. A. autumnalis (I ’//:‘(I.\‘a/1fs-gal—A llritish annual which grows I ft. or more in height and blooms at the end of summer or early in autumn. The flowers are of bright scarlet. By themselves the plants are not very effective, as they are straggling, but when grown in masses in borders or flower—beds with other autumn-fiowering annuals, they are pretty, though the plant is not popular in gardens. May be sown in the open ground in autumn or spring. A. vernalis forms dense tufts S in. to 15 in. high of finely—divided leaves in whorls along the stems. lt flowers in spring. when the tufts are covered with munerous large, brilliant yellow. ;\ne— mone—like flowers 5 in. in diameter, a single flower being at the end of each stem. 0f ;\. vernalis there are several varieties, the chief being .\. v. sibirica. which differs from the type only in having larger tlowers. .\. apennina is a later-blooming form. .«\. pyrenaica is ‘ a tine and closely allied kind from the liastern Pyrenees, with large deep yellow (lowers resembling those of .-\. vernalis, but with broader petals. It flowers in .-\pril and May. and may be grown on the rock-garden and choice borders in sandy moist loam, if not often dis: .EGILOPS THE EA'GLISH FLOWER GARDEZV (ETHIONEMA 213 turbed, robbed, or shaded by coarser plants. The rock-garden or a choice border of rock-plants suits the handsome perennial kinds well, and if the soil is poor it may be enriched with leaf-mould or any other decayed manure. Increased by careful division, or by seed sown as soon as gathered. Egilops.—A small genus of Grasses , aned to Triticum (the \Vheat Grasses) ; of little garden value. Egopodium Podag‘raria. (Gout chea’). —A troublesome, indigenous weed common in many gardens. It is very difficult to destroy, and the best way is by constantly digging out the roots. There is a rather pretty variegated- leaved variety which, however, soon turns green again in gardens, which partly accounts for the species being so widely spread in cultivation. No pains should be spared to root it out. Esculus (Hume C/zt’sliml, Buckeye.)— Mostly medium-sized trees, hardy, thriving in nearly every soil, and becoming trees as suitable for the park as for the garden. The Horse Chestnut is an exception as 1 to size, and when well grown is a noble tree, and one of the most beautiful of flowering trees. There is at least one extremely handsome variety of it with very long spikes. 7A. payia) is a very handsome small tree, with dense and large foliage, to- gether with bright red flowers in large loose clusters in early summer. Some— times it rises from 15 to 20 ft. high, but often not above shrub height, and some of its varieties are only low-spreading or trailing shrubs. The red Buckeye3 l A. humilis, pen-: dula. arguta, and laciniata are forms of; A. pavia, and the plants being of low growth are useful for grouping with taller trees. A. flava (the yellow Buck- eye) is common, and sometimes 40 ft. high. It has something of the habit of the red Horse Chestnut (A. rubicunda), but has smoother leaves. It makes a dense, round-headed tree, and in good soil is of rapid growth. The loose, erect clusters of dull yellow flowers, produced in early summer. are not very attractive. A variety called purpurascens (sometimes 3 ‘ where the roots may descend into deep A. discolor) has much showier flowers. They are larger, freely. and are of a reddish tint. The :Esculi, named in gardens and nurseries as A. neglecta, hybrida, pubescens, Lyon], rosea. and pallida, may be included in one of the foregoing spec1es, and some dltter but slightly from them. They are all low trees or large shrubs, coming into leaf early and losing their foliage in early are produced more. autumn, especially in light or dry soils. A distinct species is the Californian Buckeye (A. californica), which in this country does not usually rise above shrub height. It has slender-stalked leaves, ‘ broad leaflets, and in early summer pro- duces dense erect clusters of white or pinkish flowers, very fragrant. It is little known yet, but as it has proved a valuable hardy tree it will become more common. Quite different from the rest is the very beautiful A. parvifolia (dwarf Horse Chestnut), a native of North America. It is a handsome shrub, from 6 ft. to 10 ft. high, and invaluable as one of the few that flower in late summer. Fully grown, it makes a wide-spreading mass of slender stems which proceed from the suckers. Its foliage is very much like that of other zEsculi, and its fragrant flowers are small and white, produced in long, erect, plume-like spikes, terminating the shoots. Its elegant growth and its attractiveness when in bloom render it one of the best of hardy flowering shrubs, and its in- . difference with respect to soil enchances its value. = Pavia. Ethionema..—A beautiful genus of the ‘ Arabis family, differing from the greater number of the Crucifers in light elegant habit and wiry stems, and usually glaucous leaves. It is mostly found on the sunny mountains near the Mediterranean, par- ticularly eastward, and is especially valu- able for gardens, forming stronger and more free—flowering tufts in them than in a wild state. These little plants will grow freely enough in borders of well-drained sandy loam, but their true home is the rock-garden. The tall AZ. grandiflorum forms a spreading bush about I foot high, from which spring numerous racemes of pink and lilac flowers. It grows well too in borders in ordinary soil; seems to be a true perennial, and, when in flower in summer, is among the loveliest of alpine half—shrubby plants. It succeeds perfectly well on the front margin of the mixed border; and rockwork, though not required, will be a gain where the highest health of the plants is sought. In consequence of the prostrate habit of the stems, a good effect will come from planting them earth, and the stems fall over the face of rocks at about the level of the (eye. Easily ,raised from seed, and thrive in sandy ; loam. There are many species, but few are in gardens. All the cultivated kinds are dwarf, and may be grouped with alpine plants. The best known are A. coridifolium, pulchellum, and grandi- ‘_ florum. 214 ..\tn\t*.\.\"t‘ttt's Agapanthus (zl/hhz/I Li/t \. —— lletttttitittl plants from the Cape. \rith l)ll1L‘ttI‘\\'lllI(‘ flowers in tnnhels on stems IS in. to 4 tit. high. 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