IMPROVEMENT OF GARDEN FLOWERS 93 



with a little stalk, and a huge flower at the top of it, 

 and which continued to do this through all the flower- 

 ing months of the year. This ideal has almost been 

 reached in some double Begonias and in the dwarf est 

 Snapdragons, and if you wish to have your garden 

 all flowers these are the kinds of plants you should 

 grow. Now, there certainly are a good many people 

 who wish to have their gardens all flowers; and the 

 idea that a garden plant should be grown only for 

 its flowers is very deep-rooted. The present writer 

 has heard of a rich man whose orders to his gardener 

 were that his beds and borders should never contain 

 any plants not in flower. A vast army of plants in 

 pots was kept in the background, and these were bedded 

 out just as they were coming into blossom and re- 

 moved as soon as their blossom was over. 



Now, it is obvious that this kind of gardening is 

 very expensive, and, further, that it prevents the 

 growing of many beautiful plants which cannot be 

 treated in this way, or which, if treated in this way, 

 never show their true beauty. But that is not the 

 point which we wish to make for the moment. Very 

 expensive gardening may be beautiful, and there are 

 plenty of fine plants which can be turned out of pots 

 when about to bloom without spoiling their beauty. 

 Our point is that a garden all flowers is not so beautiful 

 as one in which there is plenty of greenery to contrast 

 with the flowers. Most people agree with this up to 

 a point, but they do not carry the principle far enough. 

 Even the gardener who likes his beds to be all flowers 



