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.
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Subtropical
Garden; or, beauty of form in the flower garden.
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
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Title: The Subtropical Garden; or, beauty of form in the flower

garden.

Author: W. Robinson

Release date: October 17, 2015 [eBook #50243]

Most recently updated: October 22, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE

SUBTROPICAL GARDEN; OR, BEAUTY OF FORM IN THE FLOWER
GARDEN. ***
 Contents.
List of Illustrations
(In certain versions of this etext [in
certain browsers] clicking on this
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(etext transcriber's note)
THE SUBTROPICAL GARDEN.

Works by the same Author.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

ALPINE FLOWERS FOR ENGLISH GARDENS. With 70

Illustrations.
THE WILD GARDEN, or our Groves and Shrubberies made
beautiful by the naturalisation of hardy exotic plants. With
Frontispiece.
MUSHROOM CULTURE: its Extension and Improvement.
With Illustrations.
Nearly Ready.
HARDY FLOWERS; or, HERBACEOUS, BULBOUS, AND
ALPINE PLANTS. This will be the most comprehensive and
practically instructive book ever published on these plants. With
Frontispiece.
A CATALOGUE OF CULTIVATED HARDY PERENNIALS,
BULBS, ANNUALS, etc., including also all British Plants.
Prepared for the purpose of facilitating exchanges, &c., and
enumerating nearly 10,000 hardy exotic and British plants.
 Frontispiece.

THE

SUBTROPICAL GARDEN;

OR,
 BEAUTY OF FORM IN THE
FLOWER GARDEN.

BY W. ROBINSON, F.L.S.,
AUTHOR OF ‘ALPINE FLOWERS,’ ‘THE WILD GARDEN,’ ‘HARDY FLOWERS,’ ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1871.

The right of Translation is reserved.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET
AND CHARING CROSS.
 PREFACE.

THIS book is written with a view to assist the newly-awakened taste for
something more than mere colour in the flower-garden, by enumerating,
describing, indicating the best positions for, and giving the culture of, all our
materials for what is called “subtropical gardening.” This not very happy,
not very descriptive name, is adopted from its popularity only; fortunately
for our gardens numbers of subjects not from subtropical climes may be
employed with great advantage. Subtropical gardening means the culture of
plants with large and graceful or remarkable foliage or habit, and the
association of them with the usually low-growing and brilliant flowering-
plants now so common in our gardens, and which frequently eradicate every
trace of beauty of form therein, making the flower-garden a thing of large
masses of colour only.
The guiding aim in this book has been the selection of really suitable
subjects, and the rejection of many that have been recommended and tried
for this purpose. This point is more important than at first sight would
appear, for in most of the literature hitherto devoted to the subject plants
entirely unsuitable are named. Thus we find such things as Alnus glandulosa
aurea and Ulmus campestris aurea (a form of the common elm) enumerated
among subtropical plants by one author. Manifestly if these are admissible
almost every species of plant is equally so. These belong to a class of
variegated hardy subjects that have been in our gardens for ages, and have
nothing whatever to do with subtropical gardening. Two other classes have
also purposely been omitted: very tender stove-plants, many of which have
been tried in vain in the Paris and London Parks, and such things as
Echeveria secunda, which though belonging to a type frequently enumerated
among subtropical plants, are, more properly, subjects of the bedding class.
But if I have excluded many that I know to be unsuitable, every type of the
vegetation of northern and temperate countries has been searched for
valuable kinds; and as no tropical or subtropical subject that is really
effective has been omitted, the result is the most complete selection that is
possible from the plants now in cultivation.
 No pains have been spared to show by the aid of illustrations the beauty
of form displayed by the various types of plants herein enumerated. For
some of the illustrations I have to thank MM. Vilmorin and Andrieux, the
well-known Parisian firm; for others, the proprietors of the ‘Field;’ while the
rest are from the graceful pencil of Mr. Alfred Dawson, and engraved by Mr.
Whymper and Mr. W. Hooper. I felt that engravings would be of more than
their usual value in this book, inasmuch as they place the best attainable
result before the reader’s eye, thus enabling him to arrange his materials
more efficiently. A small portion of the matter of this book originally
appeared in my book on the gardens of Paris, in which it will not again be
printed. For the extensive list of the varieties of Canna I am indebted to M.
Chatè’s “Le Canna.” Most of the subjects have been described from
personal knowledge of them, both in London and Paris gardens.
W. R.
April 3, 1871.
 CONTENTS.

PART I.

PAGE
INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 1

PART II.

DESCRIPTION, ARRANGEMENT, CULTURE, ETC., OF SUITABLE

SPECIES, HARDY AND TENDER, ALPHABETICALLY
ARRANGED 43

PART III.

SELECTIONS OF PLANTS FOR VARIOUS PURPOSES 221

 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Separate plates to face the pages given.

PAGE
Frontispiece—Hardy and tender Plants in the Subtropical Garden.
Cannas in a London park 13
Anemone japonica alba 17
Group and single specimens of plants isolated on the grass 23
Portion of plan showing Yuccas, etc. 25
Formal arrangements in London parks 26
Tree Ferns and other Stove Plants 28
Ailantus and Cannas 30
Young Conifers, etc. 32
Gourds 34
Section of raised bed at Battersea 40
Acanthus latifolius 47
Aralia canescens 58
Aralia japonica 60
Aralia papyrifera 61
Asplenium Nidus-avis 70
Bambusa aurea 72
Bambusa falcata 74
Berberis nepalensis 79
Blechnum brasiliense 80
Bocconia cordata 81
Buphthalmum speciosum 83
Caladium esculentum 84
Colocasia odorata 85
Canna 86
Carlina acaulis 110
Caryota sobolifera 111
Centaurea babylonica 112
Chamædorea 114
Chamærops excelsa 116
Cycas 120
Tree Fern 123
Dimorphanthus mandschuricus 124
Erianthus Ravennæ 132
Ferula communis 136
Ficus elastica 139
Gynerium argenteum 142
Gunnera scabra 144
Heracleum 147
Malva crispa 153
Melianthus major 155
Monstera deliciosa 156
Montagnæa heracleifolia 157
Morina longifolia 158
Mulgedium alpinum 159
Musa Ensete 160
Nicotiana Tabacum 163
Onopordum Acanthium 164
Poa fertilis 174
Rheum Emodi 178
Rhus glabra laciniata 180
Seaforthia elegans 185
Solanum robustum 190
Solanum Warscewiczii 195
Uhdea bipinnatifida 205
Wigandia macrophylla 208
Yucca filamentosa 212
Yucca pendula 214
Yucca filamentosa variegata 217
 PART I.

INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL

CONSIDERATIONS.
SUBTROPICAL GARDENING.

INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL

CONSIDERATIONS.
The system of garden-decoration popularly known as “Subtropical,” and
which simply means the use in gardens of plants having large and handsome
leaves, noble habit, or graceful port, has taught us the value of grace and
verdure amid masses of low, brilliant, and unrelieved flowers, and has
reminded us how far we have diverged from Nature’s ways of displaying the
beauty of vegetation, our love for rude colour having led us to ignore the
exquisite and inexhaustible way in which plants are naturally arranged. In a
wild state brilliant blossoms are usually relieved by a setting of abundant
green; and even where mountain and meadow plants of one kind produce a
wide blaze of colour at one season, there is intermingled a spray of pointed
grass and other leaves, which tone down the mass and quite separate it from
anything shown by what is called the “bedding system” in gardens. When
we come to examine the most charming examples of our own indigenous or
any other wild vegetation, we find that their attraction mainly depends on
flower and fern, trailer, shrub, and tree, sheltering, supporting, relieving and
beautifying each other, so that the whole array has an indefinite tone, and
the mind is satisfied with the refreshing mystery of the arrangement.
We may be pleased by the wide spread of purple on a heath or mountain,
but when we go near and examine it in detail, 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 peer forth around little masses of heather.
Everywhere we see Nature judicious in the arrangement of her highest
effects, setting them in clouds of verdant leafage, so that monotony is rarely
produced—a state of things which it is highly desirable to attain as far as
possible in the garden.
We cannot attempt to reproduce this literally—nor would it be wise or
convenient to do so—but assuredly herein will be found the chief source of
true beauty and interest in our gardens as well as in those of Nature; and the
more we keep this fact before our eyes, the nearer will be our approach to
truth and success.
Nature in puris naturalibus we cannot have in our gardens, but Nature’s
laws should not be violated; and few human beings have contravened them
more than our flower-gardeners during the past twenty years. We should
compose from Nature, as landscape artists do. We may have in our gardens
—and without making wildernesses of them either—all the shade, the relief,
the grace, the beauty, and nearly all the irregularity of Nature.
Subtropical gardening has shown us that one of the greatest mistakes
ever made in the flower-garden was the adoption of a few varieties of plants
for culture on a vast scale, to the exclusion of interest and variety, and, too
often, of beauty or taste. We have seen how well the pointed, tapering leaves
of the Cannas carry the eye upwards; how refreshing it is to cool the eyes in
the deep green of those thoroughly tropical Castor-oil plants, with their
gigantic leaves; how grand the Wigandia, with its wrought-iron texture and
massive outline, looks, after we have surveyed brilliant hues and richly-
painted leaves; how greatly the sweeping palm-leaves beautify the British
flower-garden; and, in a word, the system has shown us the difference
between the gardening that interests and delights all beholders, as well as
the mere horticulturist, and that which is too often offensive to the eye of
taste, and pernicious to every true interest of what Bacon calls the “purest of
humane pleasures.”
But are we to adopt this system in its purity? as shown, for example, by
Mr. Gibson when superintendent of Battersea Park. Certainly not. It is
evident, that to accommodate it to private gardens an expense and a
revolution of appliances would be necessary, which are in nearly all cases
quite impossible, and if possible, hardly desirable. We can, however,
introduce into our gardens most of its better features; we can vary their
contents, and render them more interesting by a better and nobler system.
The use of all plants without any particular and striking habit, or foliage, or
other desirable peculiarity, merely because they are natives of very hot
countries, should be tabooed at once, as tending to make much work, and to
return—a lot of weeds; for “weediness” is all that I can ascribe to many
Solanums and stove plants, of no real merit, which have been employed
under this name. Selection of the most beautiful and useful from the great
mass of plants known to science is one of the most important of the
horticulturist’s duties, and in no branch must he exercise it more thoroughly
than in this. Some of the plants used are indispensable—the different kinds
of Ricinus, Cannas in great variety, Polymnia, Colocasia, Uhdea, Wigandia,
Ferdinanda, Palms, Yuccas, Dracænas, and fine-leaved plants of coriaceous
texture generally. A few specimens of these may be accommodated in many
gardens; they will embellish the houses in winter, and, transferred to the
open garden in summer, will lend interest to it when we are tired of the
houses. Some Palms, like Seaforthia, may be used with the best effect for
the winter decoration of the conservatory, and be placed out with a good
result, and without danger, in summer. Many fine kinds of Dracænas,
Yuccas, Agaves, etc., which have been seen to some perfection at our shows
of late, are eminently adapted for standing out in summer, and are in fact
benefited by it. Among the noblest ornaments of a good conservatory are the
Norfolk Island and other tender Araucarias; and these may be placed out for
the summer, much to their advantage, because the rains will thoroughly
clean and freshen them for winter storing. So with some Cycads and other
plants of distinct habit—the very things best fitted to add to the attractions
of the flower-garden. Thus we may, in all but the smallest gardens, enjoy all
the benefits of what is called Subtropical Gardening, without creating any
special arrangements for it.
But what of those who have no conservatory, no hothouses, no means for
preserving large tender plants in winter? They too may enjoy the beauty
which plants of fine form afford. A better effect than any yet seen in an
English garden from tender plants may be obtained by planting hardy ones
only! There is the Pampas grass, which when well grown is unsurpassed by
anything that requires protection. There are the Yuccas, noble and graceful
in outline, and thoroughly hardy, and which, if planted well, are not to be
surpassed, if equalled, by anything of like habit we can preserve indoors.
There are the Arundos, conspicua and Donax, things that well repay for
liberal planting; and there are fine hardy herbaceous plants like Crambe
cordifolia, Rheum Emodi, Ferulas, and various graceful umbelliferous
plants that will furnish effects equal to any we can produce by using the
tenderest exotics. The Acanthuses too, when well grown, are very suitable
for this use. Then we have a hardy Palm, that has preserved its health and
greenness in sheltered positions, where its leaves could not be torn to shreds
by storms, through all our recent hard winters.
And when we have obtained these, and many like subjects, we may
associate them with not a few things of much beauty among trees and shrubs
—with elegant tapering young pines, many of which, like Cupressus
nutkaensis and the true Thuja gigantea, have branchlets as graceful as a
Selaginella; not of necessity bringing the larger things into close or awkward
association with the humbler and dwarfer subjects, but sufficiently so to
carry the eye from the minute and pretty to the higher and more dignified
forms of vegetation. By a judicious selection from the vast number of hardy
plants now obtainable in this country, and by associating with them, where it
is convenient, house plants that may be placed out for the summer, we may
arrange and enjoy charms in the flower-garden to which we are as yet
strangers, simply because we have not sufficiently selected from and utilized
the vast amount of vegetable beauty at our disposal.
In dealing with the tenderer subjects, we must choose such as will make a
healthy growth in sheltered places in the warmer parts of England and
Ireland at all events. There is some reason to believe that not a few of the
best will be found to flourish much further north than is generally supposed.
In all parts the kinds with permanent foliage, such as the New Zealand flax
and the hardier Dracænas, will be found as effective as around London and
Paris; and to such the northern gardener should turn his attention as much as
possible. Even if it were possible to cultivate the softer-growing kinds, like
the Ferdinandas, to the same perfection in all parts as in the south of
England, it would by no means be everywhere desirable, and especially
where expense is a consideration, as these kinds are not capable of being
used indoors in winter. The many fine permanent-leaved subjects that stand
out in summer without the least injury, and may be transferred to the
conservatory in autumn, there to produce as fine an effect all through the
cold months as they do in the flower-garden in summer, are the best for
those with limited means.
But of infinitely greater importance are the hardy plants; for however few
can indulge in the luxury of rich displays of tender plants, or however rare
the spots in which they may be ventured out with confidence, all may enjoy
those that are hardy, and that too with infinitely less trouble than is required
by the tender ones. Those noble masses of fine foliage displayed to us by
tender plants have done much towards correcting a false taste. What I wish
to impress upon the reader is, that in whatever part of these islands he may
live, he need not despair of producing sufficient similar effect to vary his
flower-garden or pleasure-ground beautifully by the use of hardy plants
alone; and that the noble lines of a well-grown Yucca recurva, or the finely
chiselled yet fern-like spray of a graceful young conifer, will aid him as
much in this direction as anything that requires either tropical or subtropical
temperature.
Since writing the preceding remarks I have visited America, and when on
my way home landed at Queenstown with a view of seeing a few places in
the south of Ireland, and among others Fota Island, the residence of Mr.
Smith Barry, where I found a capital illustration of what may be easily
effected with hardy plants alone. Here an island is planted with a hardy
bamboo (Bambusa falcata), which thrives so freely as to form great tufts
from 16 ft. to 20 ft. high. The result is that the scene reminds one of a bit of
the vegetation of the uplands of Java, or that of the bamboo country in
China. The thermometer fell last December (1870) seventeen degrees below
freezing point, so that they suffered somewhat, but their general effect was
not much marred. Accompanying these, and also on the margins of the
water, were huge masses of Pampas grass yet in their beauty of bloom, and
many great tufts of the tropical-looking New Zealand flax, with here and
there a group of Yuccas. The vegetation of the islands and of the margins of
the water was composed almost solely of these, and the effect quite unlike
anything usually seen in the open air in this country. Nothing in such
arrangements as those at Battersea Park equals it, because all the subjects
were quite hardy, and as much at home as if in their native wilds.
Remember, in addition, that no trouble was required after they were planted,
and that the beauty of the scene was very striking a few days before
Christmas, long after the ornaments of the ordinary flower-garden had
perished. The whole neighbourhood of the island was quite tropical in
aspect; and, as behind the silvery plumes of the Pampas grass and the
slender wands of the bamboo the exquisitely graceful heads of the Monterey
and other cypresses and various pines towered high in the air, it was one of
the most charming scenes I have yet enjoyed in the pleasure-grounds of the
British Isles. And this, which was simply the result of judiciously planting
three or four kinds of hardy plants, will serve to suggest how many other
beautiful aspects of vegetation we may create by utilising the rich stores
within our reach.

Clumsy mass of Cannas in a London park.

We will next speak of arrangement and sundry other matters of some

importance in connection with this subject. The radical fault of the
“Subtropical Garden,” as hitherto seen, is its lumpish monotony and the
almost total neglect of graceful combinations. It is fully shown in the
London parks every year, so that many people will have seen it for
themselves. The subjects are not used to contrast with or relieve others of
less attractive port and brilliant colour, but are generally set down in large
masses. Here you meet a troop of Cannas, numbering 500, in one long
formal bed—next you arrive at a circle of Aralias, or an oval of Ficus, in
which a couple of hundred plants are so densely packed that their tops form
a dead level. Isolated from everything else as a rule these masses fail to
throw any natural grace into the garden, but, on the other hand, go a long
way towards spoiling the character of the subjects of which they are
composed. For it is manifest that you get a far superior effect from a group
of such a plant as the Gunnera, the Polymnia, or the Castor-oil plant,
properly associated with other subjects of entirely diverse character, than
you can when the lines or masses of such as these become so large and so
estranged from their surroundings that there is no relieving point within
reach of the eye. A single specimen or small group of a fine Canna forms
one of the most graceful objects the eye can see. Plant a rood of it, and it
soon becomes as attractive as so much maize or wheat. No doubt an
occasional mass of Cannas, etc., might prove effective—in a distant
prospect especially—but the thing is repeated ad nauseam.
The fact is, we do not want purely “Subtropical gardens,” or “Leaf
gardens,” or “Colour gardens,” but such gardens as, by happy combinations
of the materials at our disposal, shall go far to satisfy those in whom true
taste has been awakened—and, indeed, all classes. For it is quite a mistake
to assume that because people, ignorant of the inexhaustible stores of the
vegetable kingdom, admire the showy glares of colour now so often seen in
our gardens, they are incapable of enjoying scenes displaying some traces of
natural beauty and variety.
The fine-leaved plants have not yet been associated immediately with the
flowers; hence the chief fault. Till they are so treated we can hardly see the
great use of such in ornamental gardening. Why not take some of the
handsomest plants of the medium-sized kinds, place them in the centre of a
bed, and then surround them with the gaily-flowering subjects? The Castor-
oil plants would not do so well for this, because they are rampant growers in
fair seasons, but the Yuccas, Cannas, Wigandias, and small neat Palms and
Cycads would suit exactly. Avoid huge, unmeaning masses, and associate
more intimately the fine-leaved plants with the brilliant flowers. A quiet
mass of green might be desirable in some positions, but even that could be
varied most effectively as regards form. The combinations of this kind that
may be made are innumerable, and there is no reason why our beds should
not be as graceful as bouquets well and simply made.
However, it is not only by making combinations of the subtropical plants
with the gay-flowering ones now seen in our flower-gardens that a beautiful
effect may be obtained, but also with those of a somewhat different type.
Take, for instance, the stately hollyhock, sometimes grown in such formal
plantations as to lose some of its charms, and usually stiff and poor below
the flowers. It is easy to imagine how much better a group of these would
appear if seen surrounded by a graceful ring of Cannas, or any other tall and
vigorous subjects, than they have ever yet appeared in our gardens.
Consider, again, the Lilies, from the superb, tall, and double varieties of
the brilliant Tiger lily to the fair White lily or the popular L. auratum. Why,
a few isolated heads of Fortune’s Tiger lily, rising like candelabra above a
group of Cannas, would form one of the most brilliant pictures ever seen in
a garden. Then, to descend from a very tall to a very dwarf lily, the large and
white trumpet-like flowers of L. longiflorum would look superb, emerging
from the outer margin of a mass of
 Anemone japonica alba. Type of fine-flowered herbaceous plant for associating with foliage-
plants.

subtropical plants, relieved by the rich green within; and anybody, with even
a slight knowledge of the lily family, may imagine many other combinations
equally beautiful and new. The bulbs would of course require planting in the
autumn, and might be left in their places for several years at a time, whereas
the subtropical plants might be those that require planting every year; but as
the effect is obtained by using comparatively few lilies, the spaces between
them would be so large, as to leave plenty of room to plant the others.
However, it is worth bearing in mind, that most of the Cannas, by far the
finest group of “Subtropical” plants for the British Isles, remain through the
winter in beds in the open air protected by litter: hence, permanent
combinations of Lilies and Cannas are perfectly practicable.
Then, again, we have those brilliant and graceful hosts of Gladioli, that
do not show their full beauty in the florist’s stand or in his formal bed, but
when they spring here and there, in an isolated manner, from rich foliage,
entirely unlike their own pointed sword-like blades. Next may be named the
flame-flowered Tritoma, itself almost subtropical in foliage when well
grown. Any of the Tritomas furnish a splendid effect grouped near or closely
associated with subtropical plants. The lavishly blooming and tropical-
looking Dahlia is a host in itself, varying so much as it does from the most
gorgeous to the most delicate hues, and differing greatly too in the size of
the flowers, from those of the pretty fancy Dahlias to the largest exhibition
kinds. Combinations of Dahlias with Cannas and other free-growing
subtropical plants have a most satisfactory effect; and where beds or groups
are formed of hardy subjects (Acanthuses and the like), in quiet half-shady
spots, some of the more beautiful spotted and white varieties of our own
stately and graceful Foxglove would be charmingly effective. In similar
positions a great Mullein (Verbascum) here and there would also suit; while
such bold herbaceous genera as Iris, Aster (the tall perennial kinds), the
perennial Lupin, Baptisias, Thermopsis, Delphiniums, tall Veronicas,
Aconites, tall Campanulas, Papaver bracteatum, Achillea filipendula,
Eupatoriums, tall Phloxes, Vernonias, Leptandra, etc., might be used
effectively in various positions, associated with groups of hardy subjects.
For those put out in early summer, summer and autumn-flowering things
should be chosen.
The tall and graceful Sparaxis pulcherrima would look exquisite leaning
forth from masses of rich foliage about a yard high; the common and the
double perennial Sunflower (Helianthus multiflorus, fl. pl.) would serve 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 Group and single
of a pleasure-ground walk; and the same is true of the specimens of plants
Yuccas, Tritomas, and other things of like character and isolated on the
hardiness. We may make attractive groups of one family, grass.
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.

Portion of plan showing Yuccas, Pampas grass, Tritomas, Retinospora, Acanthus latifolius,
Arundo Donax variegata, etc., irregularly isolated on the grass.

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!

Formal arrangements in London parks.

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