34 THE PARKS AND GARDENS OF PARIS. [Chap. II. 



borne on strong young stems, would be as pretty as those of 

 any Fern ; and so in the case of various other hardy trees and 

 shrubs. Persons in the least favourable parts of the country 

 need not doubt of being able to obtain as fine types of foliage 

 as they can desire, by selecting a dozen kinds of hardy trees 

 and treating them in this way. 



Pretty are the results obtained in this Park by carpeting the 

 ground beneath masses of tender subtropical plants with quick- 

 growing ornamental annuals and bedding plants, which will 

 bloom before the larger subjects have put forth their strength 

 and beauty of leaf. If all interested in flower-gardening had 

 an opportunity of seeing the charming effects produced by 

 judiciously intermingling fine-leaved plants with brilliant flowers, 

 there would be an immediate improvement in our flower-gardening, 

 and verdant grace and beauty of form would be introduced, while 

 all the brilliancy of colour that could be desired might be seen at 

 the same time. Here is a bed of Erythrinas not yet in flower : 

 but there is a brilliant mass of colour beneath them. It is a 

 mixture of Lobelia speciosa with variously coloured Portulacas. 

 The beautiful surfacings that may thus be made with annual, 

 biennial, or ordinary bedding plants, from Mignonette to Petunias 

 and Nierembergias, are almost innumerable. 



The bare earth is covered quickly with the free-growing 

 dwarfs ; there is an immediate and a charming contrast between 

 the dwarf-flowering and the fine-foliaged plants ; and should the 

 former at any time put their heads too high for the more valuable 

 things above them, they can be cut in for a second bloom. In 

 the case of using foliage-plants that are eventually to cover the 

 bed completely, annuals may be sown, and they in many cases 

 will pass out of bloom and may be cleared away just as the largo 

 leaves begin to cover the ground. Where this is not the case, 

 and the larger plants are placed thin enough to allow of the 

 lower ones always being seen, two or even more kinds of dwarf 

 plants may be employed, so that one may succeed the other, and 

 that there may be a mingling of bloom. It may be thought that 

 this kind of mixture would interfere with what is called the unity 

 of eflect that we attempt to attain in our flower-gardens. Tliis 

 need not be so l»y any nu-ans ; the system could be used eflectively 

 ill the most formal of gardens. 



