414 THE GARDENER. [Sept. 



THE FLOWER- GARDEN. 



Last month the value of hardy Florist flowers in mixed borders was 

 brought before the readers of the * Gardener.' I have now to 

 ask that their usefulness for cultivation in formal beds should be 

 examined. We have all read what has been said about the ab- 

 surdity, the want of taste, the unnaturalness of planting out masses of 

 plants in beds and borders cut out of lawns, and have no doubt been 

 considerably affected by all such remarks. Yet, after all that has been 

 said, we have not had a method of growing plants placed before us 

 which can compete with the above system of garden decoration for the 

 summer and autumn months. Not as doing away with Geraniums 

 and other continuous flowering -plants would we therefore advocate 

 the admittance of hardy florists' flowers into the flower garden proper, 

 but as valuable helps to these, and as forming a feature in the garden 

 of a style of beauty which can stand on its own merits. As a matter 

 of necessity, the number of kinds of flowers which can thus be em- 

 ployed is restricted to those which flower freely and continuously 

 through the late summer and autumn months ; all kinds which 

 cannot be depended on to fulfil that condition being inadmissible 

 in arrangements whose richest term of beauty is seen in autumn. 

 I should like to see all these improved forms of hardy flowers removed 

 from their position in beds marked off in corners of kitchen-gardens, 

 and made the most of in the best decorative position that can be found 

 for them. All of them can be admitted to the mixed hardy border, 

 to the enhancement of their individual charms, and the increased 

 beauty of these borders ; but we ought not to stop there, in the case of 

 plants which are fitted to add to the attractiveness of gardens laid out 

 on grass. Some plants, as the Dahlia and the Phlox, have been made 

 use of as decorative garden plants ; but, and especially in the case of 

 the Dahlia, only dwarf-growing varieties have, as a rule, been con- 

 sidered admissible for this purpose. Now I think this is a mis- 

 take ; some of the tallest sorts are the best decorative plants. In 

 Phloxes, for instance, I don't know any better kinds than such tall 

 sorts as Lothair, Bryan Wynne, or Charlotte Saison ; and the same 

 rule will generally be found to apply to other kinds of flowers. 



In arranging the plants, I would not so much plant them in a mass, 

 as dot them thickly over the beds. We have, for instance, a bed 

 which has been bright with Roses, planted with an undergrowth of 

 "Sir Walter Scott" Viola, and dotted with Hollyhocks, the edging 

 being Campanula pumila alba. Unfortunately the disease which is so 

 destructive to Hollyhocks has attacked these, and we have had to de- 

 stroy the whole of them, in order to save, if possible, a lot of clean 

 plants half a mile off. A light-coloured Gladiolus, such as Shakespeare, 

 may be dotted amongst scarlet Geraniums, or Brenchleyensis amongst 

 a mixture of Bijou Geranium and light-blue Violas j and so with other 



