CHAPTER VII 



SUMMER FLOWER BEDS 



THE formal summer flower bed, beloved by our mid- 

 Victorian grandfathers, is now no longer in favour among 

 the high priests of gardening who seek to set the horticul- 

 tural fashions of the moment. It is anathema, is despised and re- 

 jected, and in their eyes is altogether abhorrent and antiquated. 

 Did not William Morris, the Socialist poet, write of "that aberration 

 of the human mind, carpet bedding " ? He had before him, 

 doubtless, a mental vision of an elaborately shaped bed of brick- 

 red geraniums, yellow calceolarias, and blue lobelia, and it would 

 go hard indeed with the man who, in these aesthetic days, expressed 

 dissent from this contemptuous outburst. 



But violent as has been the revolt against the formal carpet 

 bedding system which prevailed half a century ago, we still have 

 with us, happily enough, the red geranium, the yellow calceolaria, 

 the blue lobelia, and the white marguerite, and though we do 

 not press them into the service with such monotonous iteration 

 as did our forefathers, they still find an honoured place among the 

 wealth of decorative material which is at our disposal as we plan 

 our summer flower beds and borders. Simultaneously with the 

 revival in popularity of old-fashioned, homely hardy perennials, 

 there has grown up the system which for want of a better term is 

 called " mixed bedding." This is a comprehensive enough 

 classification which permits of the employment of a large variety 

 of half-hardy or tender plants for filling beds in the flower garden 

 during the summer months. It allows a fair amount of latitude 

 to the gardener hi the direction of satisfying individual taste in 

 harmonious grouping and in the arrangement of colour schemes, 

 and it is an altogether admirable system, since it can be adapted 

 65 



