THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



Vases. — In their proper place, and in due proportion, vases and 

 baskets are useful in flower gardens, but they are frequently to a 

 great extent out of all harmony with the style of the garden and its 

 surroundings. Perhaps the tendency to over-decorate in this way 

 is due to the geometrical plan of many gardens, when vases are 

 placed on every pedestal and at every corner to square with many 

 meaningless angles. Happily, this style of gardening is giving place 

 to one in which vases and baskets can be used or not, according 

 to the taste of the owner. When vases are used in large numbers, 

 much may be done by planting plants of a drooping character 

 in them ; indeed, vases look most natural when trailers or climbers 

 droop over the sides. Basket-formed beds are well suited to 

 almost any position in pleasure-grounds ; but the best of all spots 

 is in an isolated recess on the turf, and next, in the central bed of 

 a flower garden, where the surrounding beds are circles or ovals. I 

 have one, the extreme length of which is i6 feet ; it is 8 feet wide 

 in the middle, stands 2 feet 6 inches above the turf, and is made of 

 Portland cement. The principal plants in it are Marguerites, Pelar- 

 goniums, Heliotropes, Fuchsias, Marvel of Peru, Abutilons, Castor- 

 oils, Cannas, Japanese Honeysuckles, and Tropseolums. More rustic- 

 looking baskets would be better suited for isolation on the turf and for 

 distant parts of the pleasure-grounds ; and very good ones can be 

 formed of wirework, lined inside with zinc, or made of barked Oak 

 boughs instead of wirework. In baskets and vases of this kind 

 permanent plants should be used, such as the variegated Ivies, 

 Periwinkles, Japanese Honeysuckles, Clematises, and climbing Roses 

 — space being reserved for flowering plants in summer and for small 

 shrubs in winter. 



Sub-Tropical Bedding. — There are four types of summer 

 flower-gardening : i, the massing (the oldest) ; 2, the carpet ; 3, 

 the neutral — quiet and low in colour, mainly through use of 

 succulents ; and 4, the sub-tropical, in which plants of noble 

 growth and graceful foliage play the chief part. To my mind, 

 a mixture of the four classes is the very ideal of flower-gardening. 

 It is possible to plant a formal garden in such a manner that the 

 severest critic could not complain of excessive formality ; for, after 

 all, it is the abuse of carpet bedding that has brought it into dis- 

 repute. And justly so, for when one sees bed after bed and arrange- 

 ment after arrangement repeated without end, with no plants to 

 relieve the monotony of flat surfaces, one has good reason to protest. 

 I have charge of a terrace garden which has to be planted with a 

 view to obtaining the best display from June to November, and I 

 am therefore compelled to adopt the carpet-bedding system ; but 



