Introduction, etc. 21 



subtropical plants with quick-growing ornamental 

 annuals and bedding plants, which will bloom 

 before the larger subjects have put forth their 

 strength and beauty of leaf. If all interested in 

 flower-gardening had an opportunity of seeing the 

 charming effects produced by judiciously inter- 

 mingling fine-leaved plants with brilliant flowers, 

 there would be an immediate revolution in our 

 flower-gardening, and verdant grace and beauty of 

 form would be introduced, and all the brilliancy of 

 colour that could be desired might be seen at the 

 same time. Here is a bed of Erythrinas not yet in 

 flower : but what affords that brilliant and singular 

 mass of colour beneath them ? Simply a mixture 

 of the lighter varieties of Lobelia speciosa with 

 variously coloured and brilliant Portulacas. The 

 beautiful surfacings that may thus be made with 

 annual, biennial, or ordinary bedding plants, from 

 Mignonette to Petunias and Nierembergias, are 

 almost innumerable. 



Reflect for a moment how consistent is all this 

 with the best gardening and the purest taste. 

 The bare earth is covered quickly with these free- 

 growing dwarfs ; there is an immediate and a 

 charming contrast between the dwarf-flowering 

 and the flne-foliaged plants ; and should the last 



