60 



GRASSES, GRASS-PLOTS, AND LAWNS. 



BT SHIRLEY HIBBERD. 



Oh, joyous spring time ! the signal of 

 thy advent is the renewed greenness of 

 the earth, and the softened azure of the 

 cloud-flecked sky! Blessed manifes- 

 tation of God's love to man, do we 

 read in the every- day fact of the blue 

 above, and the green below, for 

 these are Nature's leading and univer- 

 sal colours, that present themselves 

 whichever way we turn, and the only 

 two on which we can gaze and gaze 

 without weariness of eye or satiety of 

 heart. If the blue sky lifts up our 

 thoughts to the heaven, of which it is 

 the visible emblem, and in its blaze of 

 sunlight or beseeching poetry of a mil- 

 lion stars, fills us with wonder, the 

 grass which covers the earth, woos our 

 feet to tread its velvet verdure, and in 

 like manner, fills us with joy and love. 

 If the grasses take the first impor- 

 tance among all the green children of 

 the world, as benefactors of man and 

 the creatures that cast their lot with 

 him, so is the grass, in its collective 

 aspect one of the most poetical, and 

 morally suggestive of all the several 

 elements of an earthly paradise. It is 

 the symbol of man's state upon the 

 earth. " As the flower of the grass shall 

 he vanish away. The sun riseth with 

 heat, and the grass withereth, and the 

 beauty of the fashion of it perisheth." 

 But as the seasons renew the grass 

 upon the earth, so has God appointed 

 and promised to his children the glorious 

 second life, wherein man shall find rest 

 in the fields of heaven. The perennial 

 freshness of our grass is the distin- 

 guishing feature of our English land- 

 scape, and the grass is such a homely, 

 bright, and hearty thing, that it stands 

 for all that is good and honest in our 

 Saxon usages ; our love of country, our 

 nationality, and our independence. The 

 green undulations of a fine, old, well- 

 wooded English park, are not to be 

 equalled elsewhere in the world, and 

 a true born, home-loving Briton, may 

 well be proud of the soil he treads on, 

 seeing that it is so richly carpetted with 

 its velvet turf of lusty green, and in the 

 wildest nook of wood, among bearded 

 oaks and daisied dimples, the grass 



gives the final touch of completeness to 

 a scene — 



" Full of fresh verdure, and unnumbered 



flowers, 

 The negligence of nature, wide and wild." 



Taking the most prosy, practical 

 view of the subject, this month of 

 March is the time for every lover of 

 green turf, and every collector and 

 cultivator of grasses to be busy. The 

 increasing taste for ferns and foliage 

 plants has already done one good ser- 

 vice to the cause of botany, as associ- 

 ated with gardening; we have been 

 drawn aside from the too exclusive 

 admiration of colour, to the perception 

 of high beauty, as exemplified inform ; 

 the gi'asses possessing graces and ele- 

 gances peculiar to themselves, have, 

 within the last half dozen years, had 

 more attention than perhaps was ever 

 before awarded them in this or any 

 other country. The indefatigable Mr. 

 Lowe is busy in the publication of a 

 " History of British Grasses," which 

 will contain hundreds of figures from 

 the life, and in florist's catalogues 

 ornamental grasses begin to cut a dis- 

 tinguished figure. 



In the list of uses to which grasses 

 are adapted in ornamental gardening, 

 the formation of grass-plots and lawns 

 must, of course, rank first, because, 

 without a liberal proportion of well- 

 kept turf, a garden, however lavishly 

 furnished otherwise, is a tame, thin, 

 ineffective affair. But as distinct or- 

 naments for modern position, some of 

 the grasses lately introduced, and not 

 a few that have been known for cen- 

 turies, are most beautiful, and they 

 offer, in their tall panicles and graceful 

 foliage, the most charming of contrasts 

 to the other ordinary forms with which 

 they may be associated. I can think 

 of few things that have a more telling 

 effect in rough shrubberies, than some 

 well-disposed tufts of Tussock grass, 

 Festusca flabellata, which is a good 

 companion to that extraordinary plant, 

 the Phormium tenax, or New Zealand 

 flax. But the queen of the ornamen- 

 tal grasses is the Pampas grass, intro- 



