38 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



any other term. The reserve garden is a good place to grow flowers 

 for cutting for the house. A supply equal to that of a dozen plant 

 houses can be got from an open square in the kitchen garden or any 

 piece of good ground. For eight months there is a procession of 

 open-air flowers, which can easily be grown in sufficient quantity to 

 allow the cutting of plenty for every want. A bed or a few lines of 

 each favourite in a plot of good soil would give a great number of 

 flowers, and these, aided by the Roses and other bush and tree 

 flowers about the garden, would yield all the flowers that a large 

 house would require, and many besides for hospitals and for those 

 who have no gardens. Flowers grown for cutting should be care- 

 fully selected as regards odour, form, and colour. 



We have had evidence of the good way in which inter-cropping 



suits plants in nursery beds, and there is reason to believe that the 



presence in rich ground of two plants wholly 



Double cropping different in their nature is a good plan. A collec- 



of beds. tion of Narcissi, with lines between of Delphiniums 



and hardy Fuchsias, that is to say, two lines of 



each in a 4-foot bed, will thrive. The same is true of other hardy 



spring bulbs, which may be alternated with the choicer perennials 



that bloom in autumn ; and this way is a good one for people who 



live in their gardens chiefly in spring and autumn, as it secures two 



distinct seasons of bloom in the same ground. This applies to store 



beds as distinct from the regular flower garden, though some kind 



of inter-cropping would give an excellent result in the flower garden 



also ; as, for instance, if we have beds of Roses, we might have them 



carpeted with early bulbs, and be none the worse for it, and so also 



with Paeonies and many other flowers. It wants some care to find 



out which go best together ; but, given that, all is easy enough. 



Apart from the reserve garden, with its flowers in close masses, we 



may have gardens of a favourite flower and its forms, for the purpose 



of studying a family or adding to it by collecting 



Gardens of One o r cross-breeding. Such gardens now and then 



Flower. owe their existence to the difficulty of cultivating 



a flower, as was the case of a charming garden 



of the lovely forms of our native Primrose formed by a friend of mine, 



who thus describes it : 



No flower better deserves a garden to itself than the Primrose. 



It is so old a favourite, and has been cultivated into so many forms, 



that any one determined to have a Primrose 



A Primrose garden may choose the kind he likes best, and set 



garden. to work accordingly. There are the single-stalked 



Primroses, the earliest of all, flowering from the 



middle of March onwards, while some may be had in bloom as soon 



