318 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



stance, we have a round bed on each side of a path, and all 

 other things are in nniform order, what sense is there in 

 putting a patch of blue flowers on one side and white on 

 the other 1 



In planning geometrical gardens, the compasses wiU do all 

 we want, but in uniform gardens we may make all sorts of 

 strange figures. We have seen ideas taken for patterns by- 

 first doubling a piece of writing paper, then mth a pen scribble 

 any kind of figure on one half the paper, and when it is wet 

 close the other half on it — the fig-ure will be doubled, and of 

 course must be perfectly uniform. Tliis is a very simple 

 thing, but well worth the attention of everybody who has to 

 do with uniform patterns. But formal gardening is not con- 

 fined to great places ; there is scarcely a suburb of a toA^^l in 

 England but contains houses with gardens on too small a scale 

 to be anything but uniform. A square space in front, with a 

 half-circle for a carriage sweep, is the proper description of 

 thousands of viUa gardens. 



Florists' Gardens. — But formal gardens especially belong 

 to the whole race of florists, that is to say, the cultivators of 

 florists' flowers ; and as this concerns thousands, we will take 

 from the first the laying out of a florist's garden, and the 

 gardening required to keep up a good stock of florists' flowers, 

 for there'^is not anything in the whole routine of gardening 

 that requii-es more care, or that, until very recently, was so 

 little understood. Formal gardening especially applies to the 

 cultivation of those subjects which have been improved on, 

 those breeds which are grown in collection under name. And 

 first let us look to the requirement of the florist. He must 

 grow everything in beds or pots. Every individual plant has 

 its name, and is known when in flower, to the true florist as 

 well as a man would be. Most of these favourites are culti- 

 vated in beds. Pinks, pansies, tulips, ranunculuses, anemones, 

 verbenas, and many others, are uniformly cultivated in beds 

 four feet wide. A true florist's garden, therefore, is best laid 

 out in beds right and left of a centre walk; and if he wishes 

 to be neat, he will have two-feet wide paths between, so that 

 he can turn right and left anywhere, and work among his 

 favourites without treading on borders. The centre walk 

 ought to be six feet wide, and the beds, which should be laid 

 out at right angles on both sides, must be four, the paths be- 

 tween, eighteen inches at the least, but two feet if the ground 



