in rougher parts, where admired; in sheltered dells the large and hardy varieties of Crinum capense would look very tropical and beautiful if planted in rich moist ground; and the Fuchsia would afford very efficient aid in mild districts, where it is little injured in winter, and where, consequently, tall specimens flower throughout the summer months; and lastly, the many varied and magnificent varieties of herbaceous Peony, raised during recent years, would prove admirable as isolated specimens on the grass near groups of fine-foliaged plants. Then again we have the fine Japan Anemones, white and rose, the showy and vigorous Rudbeckias, the sweet and large annual Datura ceratocaula, the profusely-flowering Statice latifolia, the Gaillardias, the Peas (everlasting and otherwise), the ever-welcome African Lily (Calla), the handsome Loosestrife (Lythrum roseum superbum), and the still handsomer French Willow, and not a few other things which need not be enumerated here, inasmuch as it is hoped enough has been said to show our great and unused resources for adding real grace and interest to our gardens. This phase of the subject—the association of tall or bold flowers with foliage-plants—is so important, that I have bestowed some pains in selecting the many and various subjects useful for it from almost every class of plants; and they will be found in a list at the end of the alphabetical arrangement.
Many charming results may be obtained by carpeting the ground beneath masses of tender subtropical plants with quick-growing ornamental annuals and bedding plants, which will bloom before the larger subjects have put forth their strength and beauty of leaf. If all interested in flower-gardening had an opportunity of seeing the charming effects produced by judiciously intermingling fine-leaved plants with brilliant flowers, there would be an immediate revolution in our flower-gardening, and verdant grace and beauty of form would be introduced, and all the brilliancy of colour that could be desired might be seen at the same time. Here is a bed of Erythrinas not yet in flower: but what affords that brilliant and singular mass of colour beneath them? Simply a mixture of the lighter varieties of Lobelia speciosa with variously coloured and brilliant Portulacas. The beautiful surfacings that may thus be made with annual, biennial, or ordinary bedding plants, from Mignonette to Petunias and Nierembergias, are almost innumerable.
Reflect for a moment how consistent is all this with the best gardening and the purest taste. The bare earth is covered quickly with these free-growing dwarfs; there is an immediate and a charming contrast between the dwarf-flowering and the fine-foliaged plants; and should the last at any time put their heads too high for the more valuable things above them, they can be cut in for a second bloom. In the case of using foliage-plants that are eventually to cover the bed completely, annuals may be sown, and they in many cases will pass out of bloom and may be cleared away just as the large leaves begin to cover the ground. Where this is not the case, but the larger plants are placed thin enough to always allow of the lower ones being seen, two or even more kinds of dwarf plants may be employed, so that the one may succeed the other, and that there may be a mingling of bloom. It may be thought that this kind of mixture would interfere with what is called the unity of effect that we attempt to attain in our flower-gardens. This need not be so by any means; the system could be used effectively in the most formal of gardens.
One of the most useful and natural ways of diversifying a garden, and one that we rarely or never take advantage of, consists in placing really distinct and handsome plants alone upon the grass, to break the monotony of clump margins and of everything else. To follow this plan is necessary wherever great variety and the highest beauty are desired in the ornamental garden. Plants may be
placed singly or in open groups near the margins of a bold clump of shrubs or in the open grass; and the system is applicable to all kinds of hardy ornamental subjects, from trees downwards, though in our case the want is for the fine-leaved plants and the more distinct hardy subjects. Nothing, for instance, can look better than a well-developed tuft of the broad-leaved Acanthus latifolius, springing from the turf not far from the margin of a pleasure-ground walk; and the same is true of the Yuccas, Tritomas, and other things of like character and hardiness. We may make attractive groups of one family, as the hardiest Yuccas; or splendid groups of one species like the Pampas grass—not by any means repeating the individual, for there are about twenty varieties of this plant known on the Continent, and from these half a dozen really distinct and charming kinds might be selected to form a group. The same applies to the Tritomas, which we usually manage to drill into straight lines; in an isolated group in a verdant glade they are seen for the first time to best advantage: and what might not be done with these and the like by making mixed groups, or letting each plant stand distinct upon the grass, perfectly isolated in its beauty!
Let us again try to illustrate the idea simply. Take an important spot in a pleasure-ground—a sweep of grass in face of a shrubbery—and see what can be done with it by means of these isolated plants. If, instead of leaving it in the bald state in which it is often found, we place distinct things isolated here and there upon the grass, the margin of shrubbery will be quite softened, and a new and charming feature added to the garden. If one who knew many plants were arranging them in this way, and had a large stock to select from, he might produce numberless fine effects. In the case of the smaller things, such as the Yucca and variegated Arundo, groups of four or five good plants should be used to form one mass, and everything should be perfectly distinct and isolated, so that a person could freely move about amongst the plants without touching them. In addition to such arrangements, two or three individuals of a species might be placed here and there upon the grass with the best effect. For example, there is at present in our nurseries a great Japanese Polygonum (P. Sieboldi), which has never as yet been used with much effect in the garden. If anybody will select some open grassy spot in a pleasure-garden, or grassy glade near a wood—some spot considered unworthy of attention as regards ornamenting it—and plant a group of three plants of this Polygonum, leaving fifteen feet or so between the stools, a distinct aspect of vegetation will be the result. The plant is herbaceous, and will spring up every year to a height of from six feet to eight feet if planted well; it has a graceful arching habit in the upper branches, and is covered with a profusion of small bunches of pale flowers in autumn. It is needless to multiply examples; the plan is capable of infinite variation, and on that account alone should be welcome to all true gardeners.
One kind of arrangement needs to be particularly guarded against—the geometro-picturesque one, seen in some parts of the London parks devoted to subtropical gardening. The plants are very often of the finest kinds and in the most robust health, all the materials for the best results are abundant, and yet the scene fails to satisfy the eye, from the needless formality of many of the beds, produced by the heaping together of a great number of species of one kind in long straight or twisting masses with high raised edges frequently of hard-beaten soil. Many people will not see their way to obliterate the formality of the beds, but assuredly we need not do so to get rid of such effective formality as that shown in the accompanying figure!
The formality of the true geometrical garden is charming to many to whom this style is offensive; and there is not the slightest reason why the most beautiful combinations of fine-leaved and fine-flowered plants should not be made in any kind of geometrical garden.
But in the purely picturesque garden it is as needless,