174 THE VILLA GAUDRNER. 



yellow broom at v, sloe thorns at w, scarlet thorns at x, rhododendrons at y, 

 white broom at 2, and the double-flowered furze at c^-." 



270. The shrubs, smce the modern style of gardening has commenced, have 

 been planted in the pleasure-ground, in the same genei-a1 st^le as the trees 

 were in the park ; that is to say, they have been placed singly, or in groups 

 or clumps, over a lawn two or three acres or more in extent ; and around it, 

 or along one or more of its sides, in strips, which were called shrubberies. 

 Here, as in the case of the trees, the indigenous and foreign shi-ubs were 

 mixed up together in every part of the clumps and shrubbery ; and the result, 

 thirteen or fourteen years after planting, was similar to that which took place 

 in the plantations in the park ; viz. the more delicate and foreign plants 

 were choked up and destroyed by the vigorous-growing trees ; and old plea- 

 sure grounds, which had, perhaps, been originally planted with above a 

 hundred kinds of shrubs, fifty years afterwards displayed only huge over- 

 grown bushes, or low trees, consisting of not more than twenty or thirty 

 indigenous species. 



271. The floivers were distributed in the front of the shrubbery, and in front 

 of the clumps in the pleasure-ground. Like the shrubs, they consisted of 

 foreign and indigenous kinds indiscriminately mixed together; and, like 

 them, the former were destroyed by the latter and by the shrubs. It is only 

 lately that beds wholly planted with flowers have been introduced on lawns ; 

 and, though what are called flower-gardens (that is, assemblages of beds 

 wholly devoted to flowers) were to be met with in first-rate places during the 

 latter half of the eighteenth century, yet, during that period, the principal 

 places where they were planted were in the shrubbery or in the borders of 

 the kitchen-garden. With the commencement of the present century, the 

 practice of forming flower-gardens has increased ; and, within the last twenty 

 years, that of forming beds exclusively devoted to flowers on grass lawns, 

 either in groups among the scattered shrubs, or by themselves, here and there 

 along the walks, has become general. The flowers planted in these flovvei'- 

 gardens and beds were, till lately, mixed together indiscriminately in the 

 same manner as in planting the shrubs in the shrubbery, or the trees in the 

 clumps and belts ; and, wherever the plants were not taken up and replanted 

 every two or three years, the same results took place, of the stronger destroy- 

 ing the weaker. A great improvement has been made in the planting of flower- 

 beds within the last twenty or thirty years. This consists in planting each bed 

 with only one kind of flower, by which means a brilliant display of colour is 

 produced ; and in selecting for the flowers to be so planted those from warm 

 climates, such as pelargoniums and fuchsias from the Cape of Good Hope 

 and South America, &c., by which means a more brilliant display of colour 

 is produced ; the plants of warm countries far excelling, in this respect, those 

 of colder climates. Such, in a few words, has been the practice of planters, 

 landscape-gardeners, and flower-gardeners, in British gai-dens, up to the 

 present time. We shall now briefly inquire into the mode in which trees, 

 shrubs, and flowers are distributed by nature. 



272. In the natural scenery of every country, a certain number of plants 

 will always be found congregated together, to which the soil and local situa- 

 tion are favourable. The number of species in these assemblages depends 

 partly on the suitableness of the soil and climate for a great variety of species, 

 and partly on the number of species naturally inhabiting that locality. In 



