PLANTING OF FLOWER BEDS. 47 



down to the front, on all sides, interspersing the colors 

 so as to form the most agreeable contrast in shades. But, 

 for grand effect, nothing, in our estimation, can ever be 

 produced in promiscuous planting to equal that obtained 

 by planting in masses or in ribbon lines. In the grounds 

 of the Crystal Palace, near London, and at the Jardin 

 des Flantes, in Paris, wonderful specimens of this mode 

 of planting are to be seen. The lawns are cut so as to 

 resemble rich green velvet ; on these the flower beds are 

 laid out in every style that art can conceive ; some are 

 planted in masses of blue, scarlet, yellow, crimson, white, 

 etc., separate beds of each, harmoniously blended on the 

 carpeting of green. Then, again, the ribbon style is 

 used in the large beds, in forms so various that allusion 

 can here be made to only a few of the most conspicuous. 

 In a circular bed, say of twenty feet in diameter, the first 

 line towards the grass is blue Lobelia, attaining a height 

 of six inches ; next comes the famous Mrs. Pollock Ger- 

 anium, occupying a space one foot and one-half wide and 

 nine inches high, with its gorgeous leaves and flowers ; 

 then, against that, is a line of Mountain of Snow Gera- 

 nium, with its silvery white foliage and scarlet flowers, 

 backed by the maroon-colored Coleus Verschaffeltii ; the 

 center being a mound of scarlet Salvia. Another style is a 

 fringe for the front, of the fern-like, white-leaved Centau* 

 rea gymnocarpa ; back of that is the Crystal Palace Scar* 

 let Geranium ; then Phalaris arundinacea picta, a recent 

 style of Ribbon Grass ; next, Coleus Verschaffeltii, and, in 

 the center, a clump of Cannas, or Pampas Grass. 



During a visit to Europe in 1872, I went to the cele- 

 brated Battersea Park, the most interesting, in a horti- 

 cultural view, of the many parks in the neighborhood of 

 London. A feature peculiar to Battersea Park is the 

 subtropical and alpine planting, both of which, as here 

 done, were to us a novel feature in landscape gardening. 

 It was interesting to see how common and rough looking 



