ON PLANTING FLOWERS IN MASSES. 75 



tells him is requisite in the bouquet which he offers his mistress. On 

 this principle were formed the flower-clumps in the pleasure-grounds 

 which I saw last June, and the beautiful effect of which it was 

 impossible not to admire. The centre of each was occupied by tall- 

 growing plants, not yet in flower, and other portions of the surface 

 by smaller ones ; and between these /were planted double stocks, 

 purple, scarlet, and white, in considerable masses of each colour, and 

 other flowers (of which I forget the sorts) of higher growth above 

 them, and of lower growth beneath them, all in pretty large patches 

 of each, the whole being set off in tenfold beauty by the happy inter- 

 mixture, in every part, of the green leaves of the plants which were 

 next to flower. 



To obviate the bad effects of decayed flowers, perhaps the best plan 

 of ornamental flower-clumps, where expense is not regarded, would 

 be to have them partly planted with evergreens of low growth, or kept 

 low by pruning ; and, between these, to transfer from the pots in 

 which they had been raised the finest flowers of each season, just 

 taken on the point of flowering, in sufficient masses of each colour, 

 and to be removed and replaced with others as soon as they had done 

 flowering, so as always to have a new and brilliant display at all 

 periods of the year, and at the same time a due contrast of a more 

 sober colour from the intermixed evergreens. 



In the new plan of planting flowers as of shrubs, the professed 

 object is a more close imitation of nature ; but it may be doubted 

 whether the object is better attained in one case than the other. It 

 is true that we more frequently see wild flowers growing in masses 

 than singly ; but these masses are seldom large, and are almost con- 

 stantly more or less intermixed with or skirted by other plants. Take, 

 for example, the common starwort (Stellaria Holostea), which is so 

 great an ornament of our hedge-banks in spring. The tufts in which 

 it grows rarely exceed a square foot or two in extent, and have 

 almost always a border of Lychnis, Erysimum, or other plants with 

 abundant foliage, besides the shrubs of the hedge and bank as a back- 

 ground, to contrast with and set off the beauties of its flowers, which, 

 thus half displayed, it will scarcely be denied are far more attractive 

 than if crowded into one large staring mass, in a single bed, as in 

 the modern fashion. In like manner, how rarely do we see the fox- 

 glove, when adorning our heaths in its utmost profusion, collected 



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