74 THE GARDENER. [Feb. 



shape the plan may take, tender plants are used in working it out. 

 After some years' trial it is thought that this style of flower-gardening 

 with tender plants costs more than it is worth ; and panels, ribbons, 

 carpets, and cushions of tender plants are unceremoniously set aside 

 and replaced with hardy plants, arranged in the promiscuous style, 

 with a view of reducing the cost of flower-gardening. Well, it would 

 not be a difficult matter to lessen the expenditure still further. Why 

 not turn the herbaceous garden into a "wild garden T' The latter 

 style of flower-garden is the most natural. The blooming season in it 

 is quite as long as in any other style, and by adopting it we get quit 

 of the necessity for hoeing and raking, tying and staking, mowing and 

 sweeping, and all the keeping incidental to other styles. 



Some may object to contrasting the herbaceous with the wild garden 

 in the matter of keeping or otherwise. Well, the comparison is just 

 as fair as in the case of a garden bedded out with tender plants and 

 one devoted to herbaceous plants only. The systems are different ; 

 and, in my opinion, praising the one and condemning the other is a 

 mistake. Each has its own peculiar beauties to present us with, and 

 it is only those of one idea that would restrict us to one or the other 

 system, or to a choice between hardy and half-hardy plants for the 

 decoration of the flower-garden. In our own case we use both hardy 

 and half-hardy plants as bedding-out plants, and we find the plan 

 answers our purpose ; and before discontinuing it, the objections 

 urged against it will have to be of a different kind to any that have 

 hitherto been advanced. 



It would also appear, from the teaching of the authority referred to at the 

 beginning of this paper, that we are not only wrong as regards the class of 

 plants we employ at present in the decoration of our flower-gardens, but that 

 we are also wrong in keeping our gardens in so orderly and clean a state as 

 is usually the case. We are seriously informed that "the eternal raking and 

 scraping and brushing of the garden leads to primness and ugliness — starves 

 the trees, and causes endless labour for worse than nothing." Now here is 

 information for lovers of well-kept gardens ; but it is just the kind that might 

 be looked for from any one who prefers to see Carnations tossed about and 

 spoiled — so far as their flowers are concerned — by the force of the wind, rather 

 than supply them with supports in the way of neat stakes. 



I am of opinion, however, that there are not many ^yradical gardeners who 

 have such a superabundance of labour at their disposal, as leads them to 

 expend it in creating "primness and ugliness" in the gardens under their 

 charge. With " arm-chair " gardeners, however, the case may be different. 

 The outdoor departments under their care may not be extensive enough to 

 employ all their leisure time in a profitable manner ; and hence for the sake 

 of bodily exercise they may at times overdo the raking and scraping, brush- 

 ing and scrubbing business. The same teacher condemns the practice of col- 

 lecting leaves after they have fallen from the trees, and also the cutting of 

 grass in flower-gardens. He says, "The leaves should be allowed to fall and 

 rest on and nourish the surface. " Well, we cannot prevent the leaves from 

 falling, neither can we compel them to rest on the surface where they fall. 



