SUBTROPICAL GARDENING. 123 



ical gardening, generally understand the combination of colors in 

 all things. 



The principles of arrangement are beginning to be recognized 

 with us. There are various ways in which the results desired may 

 be produced, varying often according to the ground, but we know 

 that red always produces the best effect on a background of green, 

 the two colors being complementary, and that blue and yellow 

 next to green destroy each other by borrowing. Plants must not 

 be mixed heterogenously except in rockwork. There should be 

 harraon}' or contrast and variety. He did not believe in the glare 

 of too many bright colors often repeated. For general purposes 

 he thought the subdued half-tints were more pleasing, giving 

 sweetness and repose. He loved the blue and white. High colors, 

 like those of the Gen. Grant, Coleshill, and other pelargoniums, 

 may, however, be massed occasionally with great success. In 

 conclusion, Mr. Fuller expressed his high approval of all that had 

 been said by Mr, Gray, in whose grounds he had seen most perfect 

 masses of flowers. 



James Cruickshanks remarked that there are two shrubs which 

 come in well for lawn decoration, though expensive, — the variegated 

 hollies and the araucarias. A good Araucaria imhrxata is as 

 fine an object as yon can have on a lawn, where tliere are conven- 

 iencies for taking care of them through the winter. 



William T. Brigham said that he believed in masses of color 

 and foliage, and thought we had seen too much of flowers in stiff" 

 lines. Nature produces her flowers in masses, like those of the 

 Californian poppy ( EschschoUzia) , which covers the ground with 

 a carpet of gold, or the Nemophila, which looks as if a patch of 

 blue sky had fallen to the ground, or the white forget-me-not. la 

 the tropics he had noticed the effect of the masses of "• kukui " (Alfii- 

 rites triloba), which in the darkest days has the effect of sunshine, 

 but in no part of the world had he seen flowers growing natural I3' 

 in lines. Of course there must be edgings to the beds in a garden, 

 but they should never be filled with lines of flowers, as in the 

 Public Garden in this city. As instances of the effect of masses, 

 Mr. Brigham mentioned the cliffs in India covered with the dark, 

 coriaceous leaves of the Bombax or cotton tree ; the Bourjainvillea, 

 used for covering arbors, and whose floral bracts have a very grand 

 eff'ect ; and to the cannas by the watercourses, with bananas grow- 

 ing up among them. The leaves of the pelargonium are not 



