284 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



as high, up, for the front, otherwise a few years would leave 

 us their bare legs or stumps, which would by no means be 

 acceptable. The planting therefore requires, first, that we 

 should know the nature and habit of all the things we plant; 

 and secondly, that we should use this knowledge in planting 

 the tallest in the places where they would be most appropriate. 



In some of our public parks and gardens this has not been 

 attended to. In the ornamental part of the park of St. James's 

 there is the worst choice of plants, and the worst planting, 

 that can be found perhaps in England ; and we fear that in 

 too many of the pubHc jobs, the planting has been dictated 

 rather by the stock of a nursery, or the cheapness of things at 

 a pubUc sale, than by any regard to the taste which should 

 guide all things. The idea of planting things that grow fast 

 in the foreground, and others that grow slowly in the middle, 

 is preposterous, though a good deal too common a practice. 

 Some of our cemeteries exhibit this blunder in an extraor- 

 dinary manner; but perhaps there is nothing to be seen 

 much worse than may be found in our royal parks and gardens. 



As we approach nearer the mansion, our choice of shrubs 

 and trees may be more select; we may add azaleas, pyrus 

 japonica, andromedas, and other choice subjects, because more 

 in sight, and more likely to be appreciated ; and along every 

 footpath we should be doubly careful to have nothing coarse 

 or common ; not that we condemn things for being common, 

 but coarseness is not to be tolerated. Is or should we indulge 

 much in deciduous plants, unless they were rich in foliage, for 

 the bloom of all of them is of short duration, if we except a 

 few of the deciduous magnolias. We have said nothing of 

 roses, but they would undoubtedly be comprised in the shrubs 

 and trees, as we come nearer to the house, and by the sides 

 of the path ; and of these we should have but few varieties, 

 and they continuous bloomers. There might be a dozen kinds 

 perhaps that would almost always be in flower, and these 

 we should multiply instead of seeking for a large collection. 

 If twenty white roses and twenty red were always in flower, 

 in a place that would only accommodate forty, it would be 

 infinitely better than forty varieties, of which thirty would be 

 out of bloom from July to the end of the year. It is one of the 

 most injudicious things that can be done, to aim at possessing 

 numerous kinds of anything that gives us flowers for a short 

 season, instead of aiming to keep up a feature as long as we 



