iSyi.] NOTES ON FLOWER -GARDENING. 515 



continuing to be wliat it is at present — an improving one — must be 

 improved out of existence altogether. Judging from a somewhat 

 extensive survey of British gardening, the conclusion arrived at is just 

 the very reverse of such a consummation. Everywhere, in the course 

 of a four weeks' wandering among the gardens of England, the idea 

 most forcibly confirmed has been that flower-gardening, after the fashion 

 of the last twenty years, is improving, extending, and gaining a firmer 

 footing than ever it had. Inferior plants are being discarded, and those 

 of a more effective and suitable character are being added, while plants of 

 an entirely different character to any that were used for grouping not 

 many years ago have been added, with the most marked improvement 

 in effect. We are now referring most especially to succulents, and 

 plants with graceful and more gigantic features. This does not refer 

 to any one particular locality, or to any special class of gardens. What 

 we have just stated we found manifested alike among the villas and 

 dukeries of the midland counties, in the Castle garden at Windsor, at 

 Kew, and the public parks of London, and in the northern and wilder 

 districts of Scotland. The two links which were so long amissing are 

 being added wherever there is the chance of their success ; and we owe 

 much to Mr Gibson, now manager of Hyde Park, for thus inaugurating 

 these features in British decorative gardening, which, but for him, we 

 must have crossed the Channel to have seen. Succulent and singular- 

 looking plants, and those with picturesque and graceful foliage, are fast 

 toning down the vulgarities of mere colour, and breaking up the mon- 

 otony of even surfaces, where such is suitable. All this, we have no 

 hesitation in saying, is greatly improving, modifying, and establishing the 

 most effective system of flower-gardening which has ever existed in this 

 country. And with satisfaction let it be said tliat this is going on 

 contemporaneous with an increasing interest in hardy border plants as 

 compared to what has been the rule for some years back. In fact, the two 

 orders of flower-gardening are being improved and allotted their rights. 

 In our own immediate experience of two excessively dry summers, fol- 

 lowed by one of excessive cold and wet, we have had nothing very singu- 

 lar in relation to the adaptability of particular plants to the two extremes 

 of weather. The records which we had to make of the behaviour of some 

 Pelargoniums in 1870 is only confirmed by the experience of the past 

 season. Our favourite Pelargoniums among scarlets are still Vesuvius, 

 Glorious, Glow, and Violet Hill. Among older varieties, Trentham 

 Scarlet {alias Improved Frogmore), Trentham Rose, Amy Hogg, and 

 William Underwood, are the cream of a large collection. Among Pinks, 

 Christine and Blue Bell do best, and are famous wet season and autumn 

 flowerers. Among silver variegated Pelargoniums we would not, so far 

 as suitability for our purposes is concerned, care much if we were 



