164 A BOOK ABOUT THE GAEDEN. 



bours knew of it, and I determined to galvanize them 

 in the succeeding summer with a shock of astonish- 

 ment, and to turn them green with jealousy. I turned 

 myself black instead. My vaulting ambition over- 

 jumped itself by several feet, and I came down in the 

 mud before my tittering friends. You know how 

 sparingly this melancholy leaf must be used, and you 

 will therefore readily imagine the effect produced in a 

 garden of which it was made the predominant feature, 

 appearing in more than half the beds. I can only 

 compare its aspect to that of one of the ugliest objects 

 with which I am acquainted, and, I venture to add, 

 most unchristian also, for it suggests neither faith nor 

 hope the top of a funereal hearse. 



After this, as you know, our gardens were enriched 

 by the far more cheerful and charming leaves of the 

 iresine and amaranthus, coleus and beet. These are 

 grand additions, and are most effective in combination 

 with the bright summer flowers, and in contrast with 

 other foliage plants, such as the gold and silver- 

 leafed pelargoniums, the centaurea and polernonium 

 (both introduced as bedders by Mr. David Thomson, 

 then at Archerfield), the pyre thrum and variegated 

 veronica. Some complain of difficulties in cultivation, 

 but no plants are more easily propagated from cuttings 

 than the coleus and iresine, or from seed than the 

 amaranthus, beet, and perilla. I always throw in a 

 good trowelful of rich manure when planting the 

 iresine and amaranthus (of the former, Lindeni and 

 Acuminata are very superior to Herbstii), harden off 

 my coleus Verschaffeltii carefully and gradually, and 

 plant the second week in June. In adverse weather, 



