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PACIFIC SLOPE PLANTS IN ENGLISH GARDENS. 
By J. Burrt Davy. 
Tue Englishman’s delight in his garden is proverbial. 
As with other things, this hobby of his is subject to the 
vicissitudes of fashion, both as regards the nature of the 
plants or the particular order or genus which receives his 
special attention, and as regards the method of laying out of 
the ground and the grouping of its occupants. 
Within the last few years a re-action has been observed in 
English gardens against the stiffness and formality incident 
to “ carpet-bedding”’ and “ color-massing,” and a desire has 
been manifest to produce as much diversity of form and 
coloring in a small space, as good effect would permit. This 
has resulted in the revival of the more natural and by no 
means new arrangements known as the “herbaceous-border,” 
and the “rock-garden.” The former is frequently met with 
in the form of a long flower-bed under a wall, or dividing a 
lawn or gravel walk from a live-hedge or shrubbery, having 
tall and showy herbaceous plants, such as Dahlias, Asters, 
Chrysanthemums, etc., for a background with shorter plants 
in front, and a border composed of Lobelia Erinus or 
some other dwarf species: the individual plants are relatively 
placed so that a succession of flowers is produced all through 
the season, no one part being entirely without blossoms or 
ornamental foliage at any time. The rock-garden is the 
result of an attempt to reproduce the conditions best adapted 
to the growth of Alpine plants and ferns, a bog-garden being 
often combined with the rockery. 
In order to provide material for, and to maintain an 
interest in, these two forms of garden—usually met with in 
the same grounds—it is necessary for the nurseryman to go 
to more trouble and expense than he would to simply procure 
new forms, or variations in size and color, of one favorite 
species such as the ordinary garden Rose, the Pansy or the 
Chrysanthemum, for instance. He must provide “new 
garden plants,” 7. e. species which have never hitherto been 
