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THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 33 
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those readers who have the opportunities for so doing, to make a 
tour of observation through a suburban district inhabited chiefly by 
the well-to-do middle classes, and to institute a few comparisons in 
the course of their rambles. I ask them to do this because it is 
impossible to proceed far without being struck by the tremendous 
difference in appearance between the forecourt furnished principally 
with a good selection of shrubs retaining their leafage throughout 
the winter, and those which are filled with a mixture of evergreen 
and deciduous shrubs, hardy herbaceous plants, and the omniscient 
standard rose trees, supplemented in the summer season by bedding 
plants. Certainly the impression thus received will be much stronger 
than it would be possible for the most powerful pen to produce. I 
have in my wind’s eye at the present moment, the forecourts of 
two villa residences, which are as nearly equal in size as they well 
could be, and both are large enough to afford abundant opportunities 
for the display of taste in the arrangements of their furniture. As 
a matter of fact they stand side by side, but, so far as appearance 
goes, they are as far apart as the north from the south pole. In 
one we have richness and in the other extreme poverty, although the 
amount of money expended in the course of a period extending over 
four or five years does not probably differ very materially. Both 
houses stand about a hundred feet back from the road, and have a 
carriage drive, with a circular breadth of turf in the middle of the 
space, and a border on the right and left. In the one we find the 
borders filled with a motley assemblage, comprising deciduous shrubs, 
the lilac and laburnum largely predominating, a few laurels and 
arbor vites, and in front hardy herbaceous plants, good, bad, and 
indifferent, and in the summer we shall find geraniums, verbenas, 
petunias, and other bedders. 
The centre of the turf is occupied with a large bed, filled some 
four and five months with summer bedding plants, and during the 
remainder is bare and unsightly. Round the edge of the turf are, 
at regular intervals, standard rose trees, which present a fairly 
attractive appearance for about six weeks, are just bearable for 
another four months, and for rather more than six months they are 
as unsightly as a similar number of birch brooms partly worn out, 
and the handles stuck in the ground, would be. In the other fore- 
court the borders are filled to within eighteen inches of the grass 
verge with choice evergreens, and the remaining space is occupied 
from May to October with summer bedders, and on their removal in 
the month last mentioned they are replaced with hardy plants, that 
present a bright appearance during the winter, and produce a good 
display of flowers in spring, and, in addition to these, a few hyacinths 
and tulips are dotted along the front border; the hyacinths six 
inches apart, in a line six inches from the edge of the verge, and 
the tulips the same distance apart, in a line six inches behind the 
hyacinths. The breadth of turf, as in the other garden, has a large 
bed in the centre, but its occupants are choice evergreens, and it 
has a space of the same width as that along the front of the borders 
for flowering plants to brighten up the place with a bit of colour 
during the spring and summer. And instead of the standard roses, 
November. 
