CHAPTER IX. 

 SUMMER BEDDING SUGGESTIONS. 



THE question of summer bedding is a vexed one, on which 

 I claim to hold my own views. In parks and big gardens 

 in most parts of the country we see much rigid summer 

 bedding. Is summer bedding necessary ? Many people 

 would say emphatically " yes," but my own reply would 

 be a " no." It is certainly not necessary in the gardens 

 of amateurs, yet how often one sees it. 



Summer bedding in small gardens is undesirable for the 

 reason that so much more beauty can be got without it. 

 I refer to the old summer bedding of geraniums, and 

 lobelia, and stocks, asters, and alyssum. The beds are 

 pretty enough in themselves, but they are there merely for 

 show, there is little or no utility in them. The amateur 

 who goes in for summer bedding will not have his flowers 

 cut for the house. That would spoil the effect, he says, 

 and so the plants are left there purely for show. Consider- 

 ing the utility and beauty of herbaceous plants, or of the 

 new bedding which I shall refer to presently, these old 

 bedding plants may well be done away with, and with them 

 the rigid principles of old summer bedding. 



I make a plea for the total abandonment of the old stiff, 

 ornate, summer bedding, and in this chapter on Summer 

 Bedding Suggestions I deal with the new kind of bedding, 

 which is far more beautiful, more natural and effective as 

 well as useful than stiff rows of geraniums, stocks, etc. 



The New Summer Bedding : The secret of the new 

 summer bedding is in its originality. The general idea 

 is to make the " front " beds of the garden more like the 



76 



