BEDDING PLANTS. 



223 



and pyrethrums wind in and out in front of the irregular 

 masses of shrubs and border their confines. At irregular 

 intervals in the belts of coleuses and gladioluses appear 

 masses of cannas and acalyphas. 



The effect thus obtained is almost tropical-like in 

 appearance, and yet in a certain sense subordinates itself 

 to, and blends with, the masses of trees and shrubs. It is, 

 moreover, bright and cheerful, and decorative, in a region 

 full of dull brick and stone buildings, where such relief is 

 particularly grateful. 



There is again the effect of 

 bedding with a minimum of green- 

 ward at Jackson Square, Thirteenth 

 Street and Eighth Avenue, where 

 the open available centre for grass 

 space was so small after the walks 

 and boundary plantations were 

 made, that it was deemed better to 

 fill nearly all the central space with 

 a bouquet of foliage plants of many 

 colors. The bed was an irregular 

 star-shape, with cannas and acalyphas in the centre, and 

 coleuses and geraniums and pyrethrums and alternantheras 

 on the outside. 



Masses of bananas, cannas, acalyphas, geraniums, etc., 

 are made to produce excellent effects by planting them in 

 irregular masses up and down a steep bank, with single 

 specimens of acalyphas and geraniums standing outside the 

 main groups. I question much indeed whether coleuses 

 and geraniums should be planted anywhere without such 



SWORD LILY. 

 (GLADIOLUS.) 



