CHAPTER XVI. 



BEAUTY OF FORM IN THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



THE use in gardens of plants of fine form has taught us the value 

 of grace and verdure amid masses of flowers, and how far we have 

 diverged from artistic ways. In a wild state brilliant blossoms are often 

 usually relieved by a setting of abundant green, and where mountain 

 or meadow plants of one kind produce a sea of colour at one season, 

 there is intermingled a spray of pointed grass and leaves which tone 

 down the colour masses. 



We may be pleased by the wide spread of colour on a heath or 

 mountain, but when we go near we find that it is best where the 

 long moss cushions itself beside the ling, and the fronds of the Poly- 

 pody come up around masses of heather. If this be so on the hills, 

 a like state of things is more evident still in the marsh or wood. We 

 cannot attempt to reproduce such conditions, but the more we keep 

 them before our eyes the nearer shall we be to success, and we 

 may have in our gardens (without making wildernesses of them 

 either) all the light and shade, the relief, the grace, and the beauty of 

 natural colour and form too. 



A recent demand for .2,000, for the building of a glass house 

 for Palms for the sub-tropical garden of Battersea Park, throws 

 light on the costly system of flower gardening in this and other 

 public gardens. This was only a small part of the cost of keeping 

 the tender and half-hardy plants in a glass nursery and was not 

 a demand of money for a Palm-house which the public might 



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