5° 



IRISH GARDENING 



of the house, carries its hundred blooms at once 

 in spring, and seventy or so in autumn, besides 

 odd flowers all the year round. There are two 

 in bloom now (February and March). A friend 

 who had been reared in Guernsey said to me 

 she never saw finer there. It is a great puzzle 

 to me why people fail to flovver this rose. Every 

 cutting I stick in flowers as freely as the parent. 

 I cannot help thinking that people prune it, and 

 prune off their blooms. I never prune it. It 

 drives up great shoots often ten feet long. 

 These fan out into a wonderful hand, each 

 finger bearing a lot of blooms, the whole 

 group generally between twenty and thirty. 

 When these roses are over and cut away the 

 main shoot throws side-buds, and these flower 

 between spring and autumn. It would not do 

 to allow these long shoots to run away alto- 

 gether, as that would leave the lower part bare, 

 so I tie a string to the top, and haul down the 

 ends as low as I can without breaking, and tie 

 them in. They then begin to throw strong 

 shoots again, so that really what wood has ever 

 been made by the tree is there still, arching in 

 and out, fighting its way among stronger plants ; 

 but I have to help it against the jessamine, 

 which would kill anything. 



{ To be continued, ) 



Colour and Arrangement in the 

 Flower Garden. 



By L. B. M. 

 T present, when so much time is 

 devoted to the raising and perfecting 

 beautiful flowers of every form and 

 colour, it is to be regretted that the 

 arranging and setting cii these gems 

 of the garden receive but scant 

 attention in many quarters. Often 

 the effect is entirely lost when a too 

 lavish and glaring display of colour is made without any 

 regard to surroundings or modifications, such as 

 adjacent shrubs or shrubbery or other outstanding 

 features, to redeem the monotony. The judicious use 

 also of foliage plants in beds and borders, and as edgings 

 to the same, produces an efi"ect that can never be gained 

 by ever so brilliant a display of flowers with their own 

 foliage alone. But some one may say — " Vou cannot 

 improve on nature. " That is so ; but who ever thinks of 

 leaving such flowers as begonias, geraniums, &c. , to 

 nature? They are forced and hybridized out of their 

 natural form and out of their natural surroundings. 

 When you thus force nature she then demands some 

 attention from you. But if you will, then, let us look at 

 nature. The primroses in the woods are well nigh 



smothered in a nest of green ; the violets peep here and 

 there from the grassy bank ; the flame of the poppies is 

 melkowed by the waving corn ; the bluebells spread 

 their soft blue carpet in the dim light under the trees ; 

 and so we might go on with instance after instance 

 of nature's harmc>ny. 



Have )'Ou ever seen the lovely Alpines in their native 

 haunts ? If not, I will tell you how they grow. Here 

 is a clump of columbine in a nook near the rock, under 

 the shadow of the pines, and hard by we find a plant of 

 cyclamen with its few flowers and many spotted and 

 marbled leaves ; there is a wealth of ferns about and 

 other greenery. Scabiouses, too, raise their soft blue 

 heads above the rest, while out in the open the sward is 

 softly scattered over with autumn crocuses, much inter- 

 spersed with green. The Alpine roses, which resemble 

 miniature rhododendrons, are just over, and very lovely 

 they looked a few weeks earlier with their waxy-pink 

 blossoms and dark-green leaves, the shrubs growing in 

 groups or isolated specimens on the mountain side. 

 Rarely indeed does nature produce a crude blaze of 

 colour if left alone. And side by side one often sees 

 colours that, apart, may each have their own beauty, but 

 planted together otTend all ideas of taste or harmony. 

 In the lawn in front of a nobleman's residence I have 

 seen beds of brilliant scarlet geraniums side by side with 

 beds of the same flower of majenta hue. I said to the 

 head gardener — '* Do j'ou care for the scarlet and ma- 

 genta so near to each other?' "Oh," said he, " we must 

 have a variety." My courage failed me at this point, 

 and I said no more. And in the same grounds, relegated 

 to an inconspicuous place, was a lovely bed of scarlet 

 begonias, its nearest neighbour being one filled with 

 well grown, white antirrhinums, quite close to both a fine 

 group of LiUum candidum flanked by some green 

 shrubs ; truly a lovely bit of planting, and worthy of a 

 more prominent position. 



The setting of green lawn is not, in all cases, enough 

 to bring out the true value of brilliant bedding plants, it 

 is too flat and bare. Take, for instance, a bed of yellow 

 calceolarias, with blue lobelia as an outer edging — a 

 very ordinary combination and a good one as far as it 

 goes. Outside this try the effect of a row oi Echcveria 

 icr«n</«, with its perfect rosettes of grey-green, glaucous 

 leaves and inconspicuous sprays of orange-scarlet 

 flowers. The sloping edge of the bed affords these 

 the dry position they require. They also continue to 

 bloom and retain their neat, compact appearance until 

 autumn is well advanced and the early frosts warn us 

 that it is time to transfer them to their winter quarters 

 in the cold frame. .Another effective and very hardy 

 edging plant is the silvery-leaved Cerastium tornientosum. 

 Once planted it requires little attention beyond trimming 

 the edges occasionally to keep it in bounds. A bed of 

 bronze-leaved scarlet geraniums will look all the better 

 for such a setting to bring out the dark lints oi flower 

 and leaf. 



For a bed of purple flowers — Salvia Bluebeard or 

 violas — a yellow edg makes a good foil. Pyrethrum 

 aureum is good in this combination. Plant on the 

 extreme outer edge a single row of the pyrethrum, then 

 carry it inwards in a series of points like the points of a 

 star, only wider ; the flowering plants will thus have 

 similar points carried into the border. The habit of 



