THE _^ 



Horticulturist 



i4/ :^ 



fflDaiiy^K 





BRIGHT GARDENS BENEATH BLEAK SKIES. 



IROUNDS cheerful and attractive amidst 

 frost and snow, are desirable more es- 

 pecially for farmers and for the large 

 class of city folk, who are away from 

 home in summer. Farmers have too 

 much work in spring and summer to allow them 

 to take much interest on the garden ; but the 

 crops in, and the fall work done, they have more 

 leisure to enjoy pleasant surroundings. The 

 fashion of city people, of taking a long holiday 

 in the warm weather, has been very detrimental 

 to their grounds. Householders, especially 

 those who have the most money to spend on 

 their surroundings, are away the whole season, 

 or else long enough to make it seem not worth 

 while to devote much time, thought, or money 

 to the garden. Why, in winter, when they are 

 otherwise shut off pretty well from the beauties 

 of nature, should they not have at their very 

 doors landscape pictures surpassing wild 

 scenery ? We should try to have things about 

 us at their best when we can most enjoy them. 

 It was this principle that in England did much 

 to make the bedding-out system, with all its 

 faults, a sensible practice. The Easter sun 

 throws its beams, let us fancy, across the ter- 

 races of some storied manor-house, and plays 



over rich harmonies of color. Warm masses of 

 tulips, daffodils and pansies, light up the beds 

 so lately bleak and bare. And why? The 

 family which has been away for the winter is at 

 home, and have many guests. The holidays 

 over, the house is deserted and the garden lan- 

 guishes till autumn, when it is again dressed 

 with bright flowers to greet more visitors. The 

 best effects were thus secured there at proper 

 times ; and with us there is no need that our 

 grounds should be gaunt and bare in winter, 

 while we have at our disposal a great wealth of 

 evergreens boasting rich hues of green, gold and 

 brown, silver and blue, and trees decked with 

 clustering berries of scarlet, white, purple and 

 orange. The poor man can make a nice gar- 

 den from what he can find in the woods, whilst 

 his better-off neighbor can get all sorts of beau- 

 tiful things from nurseries. 



We would have the garden attractive both in 

 bleak days of late fall and in the winter's 

 snows. 



These cold-weather or winter gardens, as we 

 might call them, are not so desirable for resi- 

 dents of our smaller towns and villages, who, as 

 a rule, are at home in summer time to enjoy 

 their grounds. Still, even they might have a 



