BEDDING PLANTS. 229 



There is one plant for which I desire to ask special atten- 

 tion, on account of its fitness for border planting. It is an 

 excellent and charming bedding-plant in every way. I refer 

 to the well-known old plant, the nasturtium vine. There 

 are some kinds more dwarf and less vine-like in habit, and 

 therefore preferable for bedding. The leaf of the nastur- 

 tium, with its slightly formal outline, round rather than 

 oval, and its delicate shadings, is decorative individually. 

 When we come, however, to mass a lot of these leaves in 

 the irregular picturesque fashion in which they naturally 

 grow, their full charms appear. These charms are specially 

 effective as a border to color beds, especially if the arrange- 

 ment is on a slope or bank. The tendrils of the nastur- 

 tium push out over the turf, and break up the more or less 

 stiff outline of the bed in the most attractive manner possi- 

 ble. A certain restraint of this creeping nature will be, of 

 course, necessary, to prevent the nasturtiums from over- 

 running the greensward on one side and the bedding-plants 

 on the other. 



I have not spoken of the yellow and orange flowers of 

 the nasturtium, although they are very attractive, because 

 *in color- and foliage-bedding the leaf is of prime importance, 

 not only on account of the leaf lasting longer than the 

 flower, but on account of the broad effects of color on the 

 mass, which must be derived from the leaves. The flowers 

 will undoubtedly increase the attraction of the bed, but 

 they cannot be counted as one of the essential elements of 

 the color-bedding design. 



An important part of all bedding is the clearly defined 

 solid and distinct colors that can be used in combination 



