THE RESERVE AND CUT-FLOWER GARDENS. 95 



grown for cutting should be carefully selected as regards odour, form, 

 and colour, and the gardener should do all he can to carry out an idea 

 tending so much to give people pleasure at home, and the smallest 

 country place can afford a plot of ground to grow flowers for cutting. 

 DOUBLE CROPPING OF BEDS. We have had evidence of the good 

 way in which inter-cropping suits plants in nursery beds, and there 

 is reason to believe that the presence in rich ground of two plants wholly 

 different in their nature is a good plan. A collection of Narcissi, with 

 lines between of Delphiniums and hardy Fuchsias, that is to say, two 

 lines of each in a 4ft. bed, will thrive. The same is true of other 

 hardy spring bulbs, which may be alternated with the choicer peren- 

 nials that bloom in autumn ; and this way is a good one for people 

 who live in their gardens chiefly in spring and autumn, as it secures 

 two distinct seasons of bloom in the same ground. This applies to 

 store beds as distinct from the regular flower garden, though some 

 kind of inter-cropping would give an excellent result in the flower 

 garden also ; as, for instance, if we have beds of Roses, we might have 

 them carpeted with early bulbs, and be none the worse for it, and so 

 also with Paeonies and many other flowers. It wants some care to 

 find out which go best together ; but, given that, all is easy enough. 



GARDENS or ONE FLOWER. 



Apart from the reserve garden, with its flowers in close masses, we 

 may have gardens of a favourite flower and its forms, for the purpose 

 of studying a family or adding to it by collecting or cross-breeding. 

 Such gardens now and then owe their existence to the difficulty of 

 cultivating a flower, as was the case of a charming garden of the 

 lovely forms of our native Primrose formed by a friend of mine, who 

 thus describes it : 



" A PRIMROSE GARDEN. No flower better deserves a garden to 

 itself than the Primrose. It is so old a favourite, and has been culti- 

 vated into so many forms, that any one determined to have a Primrose 

 garden may choose the kind he likes best, and set to work accordingly. 

 There are the single-stalked Primroses, the earliest of all, flowering 

 from the middle of March onwards, while some may be had in bloom 

 as soon as the end of February. They range in colour from pure 

 white to deep primrose, and from palest pinky-lilac through strong 

 red-purples to a colour nearly approaching blue, and there are also 

 rich reds of many shades. There is not as yet any Primrose of a true 

 pink colour, nor, though the type colour is yellow, are there as yet any 

 strong yellows of the orange class. There are also double Primroses 

 in nearly all the same colourings. The Polyanthus, with its neat 

 trusses of small flowers, though beautiful in the hand and indis- 



