186 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



bloom such as they have not had for four years past. While the yellow 

 in these and other beds has been fully brought out, other colours, through 

 the peculiarity of the seasou, have been weak and ineffective ; and at no 

 time so opportunely as the present could we take note of the value of 

 foliage as a means of giving tone and contrast, as well as positive colour. 

 The links in the chain pattern and the edgings of the beds being of Man- 

 gles' variegated geraniums, save the calceolarias from being utterly ob- 

 noxious, and do something towards robbing the mixture of scarlet and 

 yellow of the vulgarity inherent in it. The band of scarlet geranium 

 round the calceolarias is a combination we have been compelled to get used 

 to, for it is the one most depended on for effect in most private gardens. 

 The variegated edging here saves it from being a downright abortion, but 

 does not bring it within the category of good colouring. The centre of 

 the terrace is in better taste all through. The best colouring ever accom- 

 plished in the history of the bedding system is that of the circular beds 

 round the araucarias. An inner circle of cerastium, a broad circle of blue 

 lobelia, and an outside edging of cerastium, produce an effect as remarkable 

 as it is delightful for its grace and chastity. A vulgar-minded colourist 

 would have ventured on something more gaudy for the outside edge, and 

 would never have thought of the gray line inside at all, but in this broad 

 zone of blue enclosed within and without by simple lines of silver all the 

 artist is made manifest. If we look right and left from these beds, it 

 becomes evident at once that their purity of colouring is enhanced by the 

 pink and scarlet of the pedestal beds. Cottage Maid and Christine are 

 admirably placed, and there is originality as well as accuracy of harmony 

 in the whole of the colouring of this portion of the terrace, with the sole 

 exception of a blue verbena outside Lady Plymouth. This geranium is 

 not silvery enough to bring out the blue of the lobelia, and the lobelia not 

 blue enough to give distinctness to the gray leaf of the geranium, and the 

 combination is in every sense a mistake. The line of beds at the foot of 

 the grand terrace are admirably planted, and the new tropceolum Triomphe 

 de Hyris in the circular beds makes a novel and conspicuous feature. 

 This is a variety which will be much prized ; the flowers are large, canary 

 yellow, with dark spots ; the flower-stalks of exactly the right length to 

 cause the flowers to lay, as it were, on the surface of the foliage, and the 

 bloom most abundant. The oblong beds are of Ciystal Palace geranium, 

 with Purple King verbena outside the geranium, and an edging of Flower 

 of the Day, and these alternate with the circular beds of Triomphe de 

 Hyris and Tropceolum elegans, the last-named being as good this wet 

 season as at any former time, but the verbenas everywhere being in a 

 state of unutterable poverty. 



On the rose mount at Sydenham the calceolai'ias do their share of mis- 

 chief more flagrantly than on the terrace, for there are some circular beds 

 on the outer circumference, consisting of calceolaria only, and so placed as 

 to stand apart from other colours that might assist them, fighting it out 

 in their own way with the breadth of green turf that surrounds them. 

 There is Salvia patens, too, beautifully in bloom, rather thinly planted ; a 

 very decided blue in the midst of a decided green — one of the most valuable 

 bedders we have, made to look ridiculous. With these exceptions, the 

 planting of the rose mount is all that could be desired for boldness and 

 correctness of contrast, and for agreeable harmonies. There is a bed of 

 variegated geranium mixed with Chenopodium atriplicis, a purple-leaved 



