DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



The care to bring complementary colors together, has sometimes a fine effect — as in case 

 of vivid orange-scarlet, and azure blue — the scarlet of Smith's Geranium, Scarlet Lych- 

 nis, or Defiance Verbena, with the blue of Salvia patens. Camellia Celestis, and the 

 blue Nemophila. AVhite and scarlet, orange with purple, yellow Avith blue, pink with 

 white or deep purole, look well. Next your Scarlet Geraniums place a knot of Camel- 

 lias, or pin down a blue Salvia. In another place, or on the other side of the (Jeranium, 

 set double white Feverfews. Place a mass of blue Nemophila or of white Verbenas, 

 beside Ransom's Defiance, (I am talking of Verbenas) — put Eclipse, Brill's Rosy or Beau- 

 ty Supreme, with Frost's purple. St. Margaret with Othello, or the common purple Ver- 

 bena. Star masses of new blue Convolvulus; next Escholtzia, (Chryse's,) and masses 

 of Calystegia, set with masses of the new Plumbago larpentaj. Flowers should also be 

 grouped in the borders according to their forms. Double white Feverfews, and pur{)le 

 Senecias, together. Malope, purple and white Lavateras, and African (annual) Hibiscus, 

 together. Scarlet and orange colored Cacalia, Mexican Ageratum and white Eupatorium, 

 in a group. It is everything to a flower garden, to arrange and group flowers according 

 to heights, forms and colors, so that in place of the chaotic, hap-hazard, higgledy-pig'gle- 

 dy style so common, the order, grace, and beauty of true divine Art, should rule and 

 harmonise all things in it. 



Dedhim, Mass., March 17. 



Dnmrstir Untirri 



Frontispiece — Rural Church. — Pursuing 

 our intention of occasionally presenting sketches 

 and hints for the improvement of our county 

 churcli architecture, we give, this month, a 

 view from an English Journal, of the new dis- 

 trict church at Bracknell. We think no one 

 can become familiar with the forms and outlines 

 of the Gothic style as applied to church archi- 

 tecture, even in this comparatively simple man- 

 ner, without being impressed with its superiori- 

 ty, both in point of significance and beauty, 

 over the Grecian structures, still so commonly 

 built for churches in many parts of the country. 



Hardy Trees. — It is interesting to note the 

 hardiness of various trees or shrubs not yet 

 well known in the country. Though the past 

 winter has not been a cold one in the northern 

 states, yet the alternation of heat and cold have 

 been so frequent as to affect many half hardy 

 plants quite as much as a much lower state of 

 the atmosphere usually does. 



Cryptomeria japonica and Taxodiuin sem- 

 pervirens, two new evergreens which were ex- 

 pected to prove decided acquisitions to our 

 pleasure ground, do not, we are sorry to find, 

 after two years trial, prove to be really hardy. 



The young shoots of the latter have either been 

 quite killed by the frost — even when the plants 

 have been covered; while the former, though 

 not absolutely killed, becomes so browned and 

 enfeebled that it can never be looked upon as 

 a hardy tree north of Philadelphia. In the cli- 

 mate of Baltimore and southward, we have no 

 doubt that both these trees will prove quite 

 hardy. 



Pinus excelsa, abies Smithiana, Picea ce- 

 phalonica, Thuya filifonnis, prove perfectly 

 hardy in all exposures. The Deodar cedar, we 

 are glad to mention, is quite hardy, and flourish- 

 es admirably in this climate, and will soon be 

 extensively planted as one of the most beauti- 

 ful of evergreens. We have still some doubts 

 about the hardiness of the Araucaria or Chili 

 pine. It certainly stands the winter — but still 

 it seems enfeebled by it. This tree seems to 

 demand a soil composed of three-fourths sand 

 as a necessity. In rich, damp, loamy soils it 

 neither grows nor bears the winters — even about 

 Philadelphia — wliile in a somewhat shaded posi- 

 tion and in very sandy soil, it thrives as far 

 north as the Hudson Highlands. Whether it 

 will take to our climate as it does to that 

 * England — where it is certainly the most striki 



