BEDS AND GROUPS OF HARDY PERENNIALS. 13 



door plants. The only precaution that need he mentioned is, that 

 to grow Lilies well they should have three feet, or nearly that, of 

 free loamy earth, with a good dash of vegetable mould in it. Even 

 now such kinds as L. tigrinum, longiflorum, candidum, croceum ; 

 bulbiferum, &c., are to be had pretty cheap although the chief 

 thing that gardeners have been doing with the hardy Lilies for 

 some time past has been to throw them on the rubbish heap, to 

 make way for such glorious " stuff" as the yellow Calceolaria and 

 the red Geranium. 



No. 3. This shall be an evergreen bed, highly suited for a position 

 near small clumps of choice shrubs, or indeed anywhere that a 

 place may be found for it. In the centre a healthy, g-ood young 

 plant of Yucca gloriosa, and around it a ring of Yucca filamentosa 

 and flaccida mixed. These two kinds flower regularly and well. 

 If among them you could insert a few roots of Gladiolus in early 

 summer, they would add very much to the effect of the white flowers 

 of the Yuccas. Around the Yuccas place a ring of Iberis correaefolia, 

 and around that a ring of that capital little spring plant, Erica 

 carnea. Finally, if there be room and if you have your bed in an 

 isolated spot, you can of course make it as wide as you like put a 

 little cushion of the beautiful Aubrietia purpurea all round your 

 Erica carnea ; and if you have a few Crimean or common Snow- 

 drops, or Scilla bifolia to spare, drop them here and there between 

 the Erica and the Aubrietia, and the effect will be all the better. 



No. 4. A mixed bed, carefully arranged as to the height, and 

 tastefully as to the quality and disposition of the contents. In this 

 kind of bed I should have no band or circle whatever, but simply a 

 careful following out of the mixed principle. We could scarcely 

 find a better centre for this type of bed than a good kind of Perpetual 

 Rose, grown upon its own roots, or worked very low, or trained as a 

 pyramidal bush, say 4 ft. high, more or less according to taste and 

 the subjects to be grouped in the bed. ]$o weedy subject should 

 occur in a bed of this kind, but, on the contrary, everything of the 

 most distinct beauty. You may employ in such a bed anything, 

 from a tuft of Campanula carpatica bicolor on its outer edge to the 

 choicest Pink, Phlox, or Picotee, the newest Delphinium, or the oldest 

 spring flower. To specify a few choice things for such a bed, I may 

 name for the central parts and around the central subject, Platy- 

 codon autumnale,or P. grandiflorum, Delphiniums (some of the newer 

 and better varieties), Aconitum variegatum, Achillea filipendulina. 



