36 ORNAMENTAL GARDENING 
tion of plants for a garden should therefore comprise all the best 
and most showy sorts that can be procured, or for which there is 
proper room and a suitable situation. And these should be well 
mixed together, though not to the exclusion of the practice of 
grouping particular kinds. To throw the various tribes of plants 
into masses, according to their natural affinities, as is sometimes 
recommended for arboretums, while it is destructive of all variety 
under the most favorable conditions, is quite out of the question 
in small gardens.”’ This was written in 1850 and whatever was 
beautiful then is beautiful today and will be in a thousand years 
from now,—yes, forever. 
Nature continually produces the most violent discords of 
color. We find in any considerable collection of plants those 
whose blossoms and foliage are in decided discord and if we were 
to combine these colors in art they would be hideous, but nature 
can combine them and they look all right. In a fine sunset we 
see nearly every color and the same is true in the rainbow or an 
autumn forest yet no one finds fault with any of these. 
Why should we not condemn all plants with showy flowers or 
striking leaves, the gorgeous beds of annuals, the Chinese Hibis- 
cus or the palms? It is well to be careful when we set plants 
close to buildings or walls for in that case we are mingling art 
and nature, and the same is true when planting a formal garden, 
the latter being more a work of art than of nature. I do not 
want to defy the laws of good taste but I would, in most cases, 
subordinate them to those of nature. In writing what I have 
done on this most important subject I have registered the solemn 
convictions of an old man who has loved all these dear things 
with a deep devotion since he was old enough to know his right 
hand from his left. 
There are some plants which will not do well in the full sun- 
light, for example, Thunbergia erecta, Dracaena godseffiana and 
many of the palms, and I have specified these in the catalogue. 
One may produce excellent effects by planting palms or other 
plants with striking foliage against a background of hammock or 
other tall trees and the bamboos look well in such situations. 
Bamboos or palms look well when planted as isolated specimens 
where they can have plenty of room, and when they get up so 
that they cut the sky line the effect is indescribably beautiful. 
