128 



Landscape Gardening 



pleasure in other and different Yarieties of the flower-garden. 

 With some families there is a taste for botany, when a small 

 botanic flower-garden may be preferred - - the herbaceous 

 and other plants being grouped or massed in beds after the 

 Linnaean, or the natural method. Some persons have an 

 enthusiastic fondness for florist flowers, as pansies, carna- 

 tions, dahlias, roses, etc.; others for bulbous plants, all of 

 which may very properly lead to particular modes of laying 

 out flower-gardens. 



<., V 



FIG. 26. GARDEN SEAT 



The desideratum, however, with most persons is, to have 

 a continued display of blossoms in the flower-garden from 

 the opening of the crocus and snowdrop in the spring, until 

 the autumnal frosts cut off the last pale asters, or blacken 

 the stems of the luxuriant dahlias in November. This may 

 be done with a very small catalogue of plants if they are 

 properly selected: such as flower at different seasons, con- 

 tinue long time in bloom, and present fine masses of flowers. 

 On the other hand, a very large number of species may be 

 assembled together; and owing to their being merely botan- 

 ical rarities, and not bearing fine flowers, or to their blos- 

 soming chiefly in a certain portion of the season, or con- 

 tinuing but a short period in bloom, the flower-garden \vill 

 often have but an insignificant appearance. With a group 

 of pansies and spring bulbs, a bed of ever-blooming China 

 roses, some few eschscholtzias, the showy petunias, gilias, 



