SUBURBAN EESIDENCES. 85 



would reach to tlie top of the house, and the others would cover the lower 

 part. The myrtles and the camellias would require to be matted during the 

 severest weather in winter, and the other plants would occasion a good deal 

 of pruning and training during summer. On the supposition that the occu- 

 pier of the house was a lady, we would not recommend any climber to be 

 planted against the house that would grow higher than 4 ft. or 5 ft. ; but such 

 as myrtles, camellias, pelargoniums, fuchsias, &c., as these would not need 

 the use of a ladder to train them. The side and front walls of the front gardei: 

 may be covered with China roses, different varieties of honeysuckles, and 

 /asminum officinale. Against one of the side walls, if there be room, a 

 double-flowering pomegranate may be planted in the centre ; and against the 

 others Magnolia conspicua or purpurea. In the beds in the interior of this 

 garden, we would plant nothing but flowers ; or we might devote the centre 

 bed a infg. 39. to moss roses, or to some other kind or kinds of rose belong- 

 inp- to sections different from those which include the China roses. In the 

 centre of this rose-bed there might be a standard rose. At the end of this 

 work we shall give selections of roses, as well as of herbaceous perennial, bien- 

 nial, and annual flowers. 



131. — hi choosing the flotoers for the beds, the best and easiest way is to 

 choose greenhouse plants, which will produce a brilliant effect from May to 

 September, though they will require to be renewed every year, and which, in 

 London, at least, may be procured at a very moderate cost from the hawkers 

 in the streets. But where permanent flowers are preferred, the objects to be 

 kept in view ought to be to have an equal number of kinds of flowers in 

 bloom, if possible, every month in the year, and to have an equal number of 

 the different colours displayed at the same time. This is a sort of beau ideal, 

 which, however, cannot be carried into practice in the winter months ; but it 

 is, nevertheless, useful as a guide as to what ought to be selected. Other 

 guides are, that such plants only should be planted as will grow in the same 

 soil, and with the same aspect ; that plants placed adjoining each other should 

 not be very different in size and habit of growth when full-grown, lest the 

 one should choke the other, and lest the assemblage should appear inhar- 

 monious ; nor very different in their natural vigour of growth, lest the roots 

 of the one should occupy a much greater portion of soil than the others. To 

 plant paeonias, everlasting peas, asters, Papaver orientale, and such like 

 plants in juxtaposition with daisies, hepaticas, and pinks, would be attended 

 with the suffocation of the latter diminutive kinds ; but the very tallest and 

 the very lowest plants may be included in the same bed, provided it is very 

 large, and there be a gentle gradation observed between the one and the 

 other. If the bed is to be seen from every side, then the tallest growing 

 kinds can be placed in the centre, and the lowest in the circumference, and 

 the intermediate sizes between them, so as to rise in gradation from the 

 lowest at the margin to the highest in the middle. If the bed is a border, 

 parallel to a walk, and to be seen only on one side, then the lowest plants 

 should form a row next the walk, and the others should be placed behind 

 them in quincunx, according to their sizes, the tallest being placed behind, 

 and forming tlie last row. The distance at which one plant should be kept 

 from another depends more on the habit of the plmt with respect to lateral 

 extension, than on the height to which it grows ; thus a pseony, which seldom 

 grows above 18 in. high, but which spreads its large leaves over a nuich 



