BEAUTY OF FORM IN THE FLOWER GARDEN. 227 



public gardens. It may be noted that this is only a small part 

 of the cost of keeping the tender and half-hardy plants in a glass 

 nursery and not a demand of money for a Palm-house which the 

 public might enjoy ; but was to be part of the expenditure on 

 some glass-sheds which they never see, and which were merely 

 to grow the plants to be put out for a few months in summer. 



In our flower gardens Palms can only be seen in a small state ; nor 

 can they, as shown in pots and tubs in Battersea, give one any idea of 

 the true beauty of the Palm on the banks of the Nile or the Ganges. 

 But, worse than this, the system leads to the neglect of the many 

 shrubs and trees of the northern world, which are quite as beautiful as 

 any Palm. The sum mentioned as the cost of the house for young 

 Palms would go far to plant Battersea Park with the finest hardy 

 shrubs and trees. The number of these public gardens that are being 

 opened in all directions makes it all the more important that the false 

 ideal they so often set out should be made clear. I do not say we 

 should have none but hardy plants in public gardens, but the con- 

 centration of so much attention, and of the greater part of the cost, 

 on such feeble examples of tropical plants as can be grown in this 

 country set out for a few months in the summer has a very bad effect. 

 The lesson all connected with gardening in any way want most to 

 learn is that the things which may be grown to perfection in the open 

 air in any country are always the most beautiful, and should always 

 have the first place in their thoughts. 



It would be much better in all ways to place a like artistic value 

 on everything that stands in the open air in a garden, and regard all 

 parts of the garden as of equal importance without wholly doing 

 away with tropical plants, at least with those that can be grown 

 with advantage in our country. 



Looking round the London parks we see much waste in trying to 

 get effects of form from Palms and various tender plants, strewn in all 

 directions in Hyde Park, often dotted about without good judgment, 

 and marring the foreground of scenes that might be pretty. Where 

 this is done there is rarely any attempt to get effects of fine form 

 from hardy trees, shrubs, and plants, which is a much simpler and 

 easier process than building costly glasshouses to get them. 



For our gardens, the first thing is to look for plants that are 

 happy in our climate, and to accustom ourselves to the idea that 

 form may be as beautiful from hardy as from tender things. Many 

 tropical plants, which we see in houses cut down close and kept 

 small, would, if freely grown in the open air in their own country, be 

 no more striking in leaf than the hardy Plane or Aliantus. Many 

 plants that are quite hardy give fine effects, such as the Aralias, 

 herbaceous and shrubby. Aristolochia among climbers ; Arundo, 



Q 2 



