304 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



plants, Petunias, Zinnias, Begonias, Ageratum, Calceolarias, and 

 many more, might now be added to the list, besides the 

 numerous foliage plants, such as Coleus, Echeverias, Cerastiums, 

 Dracaenas, also Alternanthera, and other low growing things 

 which are used for carpet bedding. More skill is now used in 

 the selection of colours and arrangements of plants, some fine 

 effects being thus produced with these combinations. Graceful 

 and more feathering plants are planted among the old-fashioned 

 bedding plants, such as a groundwork of some self-coloured 

 viola, relieved by tall standards of ivy-leafed Geranium, 

 Dracaenas, Cannas, or Grevillea robusta. At first the bedding-out 

 consisted in merely filling the beds with flowers to produce 

 as great a blaze of colour as possible. Trentham garden is 

 described in 1859 as a " startling mass of Geraniums and 

 Calceolarias," and this alone was the aim of the gardeners in 

 many places. 



There is a very large folio volume by A. E. Brooke, 

 in which are depicted what were then considered the 

 finest gardens in England.* Most of them are Italian in 

 design, and the beds are filled with these gaudy but perish- 

 able flowers. Among the number he illustrates may be men- 

 tioned Woburn, Worsley, Eaton, Trentham, Castle Howard, 

 and Teddesley, designed by Nesfield, all laid out between 

 1845 and 1858. Sir Joseph Paxton, gardener to the Duke of 

 Devonshire at Chatsworth, and well known as the Editor 

 of the Magazine of Botany, was the architect of the building 

 of the Great Exhibition, for which he was knighted ; and he 

 afterwards laid out the gardens at Sydenham in an Italian 

 style, when the structure was rebuilt there as the Crystal 

 Palace. But the taste must not be judged from this crude 

 example, as many charming gardens of a stiff Italian design 

 exist. Besides those already quoted, Harewood is a fine 

 example. It was planned by Lady Harewood, and the designs 

 for the fountains and stone balustrades were made by Sir 

 Charles Barry. The laying out of Shrublandsf was begun by 



* Gardens of England. By A. E. Brooke, 1858. 

 fin Suffolk, belonging to Lord de Saumarez. 



