152 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



But the general question ia not raised when we direct attention to 

 hardy plants as admirably adapted to gratify the tastes of amateurs 

 who keep gardens and gardeners for purposes of recreation, the em- 

 bellishment of the home, and as means of education for their 

 children. Ifc ia not a general but a particular question tliat arises, 

 whether all the resources of an establislunent shall be directed to 

 the production of a gorgeous display during the three summer 

 months, to the exclusion of numerous beautiful and interesting 

 subjects, or whether the best means shall be taken to secure interest 

 and beauty for all seasons, even if the bedding display should have 

 to be reduced in magnitude and glory. And, as a rule, the bedding 

 display loill le contracted, and hardy plants will have more attention 

 and be better appreciated, and gardening will become less costly 

 and more delightful. 



Our horticultural amateurs are scarcely aware of the vast variety 

 and exquisite beauty of the hardy plants that flower at this season 

 of the year. It is but in a few gardens they are to be met with ; it 

 is but in few gardens they are cared for and understood. But there 

 is much inquiry about them. Trade cultivators, who a few years 

 since cleared them out from their nurseries, wish they had kept 

 them ; for the demands of the time compel them to make purchases, 

 at comparatively high prices, of things that ten or fifteen years ago 

 they considered as rubbish. It is a fickle climate, but not more 

 fickle than the tastes of the people who endure its rough usage, and 

 thrive under its assaults of heat and cold, and wet and dry, that 

 have no rule, and change from one to the other without warning. 

 Yes, there are thousands of persons who are interested in gardening 

 who can now see beauty in hardy border flowers, though a few years 

 since they spurned such things as fit only for cottagers. The plain 

 truth about the matter is that for some time past the cottagers have 

 had the best of it ; their great patches of white arabis, and yellow 

 alyssum, and purple aubrietia ; their velvety and richly-laced polyan- 

 thuses, their double and single primroses, and their sweet-scented 

 stocks and wallflowers — liave made a mockery of the rich man's 

 parterre, which is a mere desert, all blank and bare when the cot- 

 tager's garden is brimming with flowers and eloquent with perfume, 

 and every tree is a bower of sweets and a musical academy. 



The time is at hand when we shall turn from ephemeral displays 

 that are costly to things of permanent value and beauty that are as 

 cheap as sunshine and fresh air, and wonder that the horticultural 

 mind could have been so long under the influence of a delusion. 

 These remarks are not intended to be antagonistic to the bedding 

 system. Promenades and parterres need as much to be furnished, 

 and richly furnished too, as do dining and drawing-rooms. Where 

 the bedding system is in keeping with its surroundings, it is one of 

 the necessities of first-class gardening, as essential in its place as 

 carpets and pictures are within doors. But when small gardens and 

 contracted purses are enthralled by it, when the garden is kept des- 

 titute of beauty and interest nine months in the year that it may be 

 absurdly gay during the remaining three, we can only say that such 

 an abuse of the bedding system brings disgrace on the art of 

 gardening. S. H. 



