Suggestions for Using Bedding Plants' 



■■hiTARTING with the beginning of the 

 1^^^ season, the various Dutch bulbs are 

 P^P^ the first to attract our attention. 

 They are easily cultivated and, therefore, 

 most appropriate for the amateur. Ex- 

 quisite effects and color schemes can be 

 carried out; although their duration of 

 bloom barely reaches more than four 

 weeks, I think they make the most strik- 

 ipg display of the season. Only the 

 purest and clearest colors should be 

 selected. Off colors and the peculiar 

 magenta shades are hard to match with 

 pure colors and are best planted by 

 themselves, or far enough distant so as 

 not to detract from them. Mixed beds 

 containing a number of varieties look 

 very well, but beds of all one color show 

 - better taste. Where a number of beds 

 are planted, greater attention must be 

 given to work out a harmonious color 

 scheme. Pink, white and light blue 

 blend admirably; next comes yellow, 

 then red and yellow and the various reds. 

 It is a great deal more pleasing to the 

 eye to let the colors run into each other 

 by degrees than to create too big a con- 

 trast. Colonies of crocuses, snowdrops 

 and scillas, singly and several together, 

 . irregularly scattered on the lawn, look 

 very charming. 



Pansies, bellis and myosotis are also 

 extensively used. Although the pansies 

 come in a multitude of colors, they are 

 mostly used mixed and often with Bellis 

 perennis as a border. Little advantage 

 has been taken of working out color 

 schemes with pansies, and yet if we stop 

 to study their rich tints, tints which I 

 think cannot be found in any other plant, 

 the possibilities are wonderful. 



Following these come the summer 

 plantings with cannas, geraniums, helio- 

 trope, begonias, petunias, coleus, acah*- 

 phas, abutilon, salvias, verbenas and a 

 great number of other plants too numer- 

 ous to be mentioned. 



Almost all bedding plants thrive and 

 flourish best in full sunlight, except 

 tuberous begonias and fuchsias, which do 

 best in half shade, where there is plenty 

 of indirect light; other plants, like some 

 of our hardy palms — phoenixes, latanias, 

 chama^rops — the various fibrous-rooted 

 begonias, like semperflorcns, Vernon, 

 Schmitti, and fancy-leaved caladiums, 

 do well under both conditions. 



The soil for cannas, musas, ricinus and 

 Caladium esciilenium. should be very rich, 

 their growth will be so much more lux- 

 uriant; while the rest of the plants, Hke 

 geraniums, begonias, verbenas, salvias, 

 cuphea, ageratum, and so forth, also 

 need enriched soil. Care must be taken 

 not to use too much fertilizer; this will 



result rather disastrously and the plants 

 will show an abundance of foliage in 

 place of flowers. 



Bedding plants, before set out in their 

 summer quarters, should be properly 

 hardened off, they should be exposed 

 freely to the air and sunlight at least 

 two weeks before the planting season 

 commences. Nothing serves this pur- 

 pose better than the hotbed, no matter 

 how much some of the growers are op- 

 posed to this sort of cultivation. It is 

 true, the cost of labor is somewhat 

 higher, but the superior results obtained 

 fully justify the expenditure made, and 



or less formal, they should not appear 

 stiff; every plant should have plenty of 

 room for full development, and where a 

 number of varieties are used in one bed, 

 the tall ones should be massed, but here 

 and there one should rise above the lower 

 ones, so as to present a loose and pleas- 

 ing arrangement ; in this manner, every 

 plant w^ill show its valuable points more 

 advantageously. We can improve the 

 bad points of one plant with the good 

 ones of another. 



Particular stress should be given to 

 the selection of the various tints, blend- 

 ing richly-colored foliage tastefully with 



Bedding Plants in Allan Gardens, Toronto 



•In the M.irch Usuc an article appeared on where to 

 utte beddini; plants. This article disctisseH ho%v to use them, 

 and ii by tHe wanie author. Mr, Alois Froy, Chicago. 



plants hardened off in this manner suffer 

 i)ut very little in transplanting. 



We have plants of every desirable 

 height, from two inches up to eight feet, 

 some with a wealth of flowers, others 

 again with richly colored foliage, some 

 with coarser, others with more graceful 

 features. 



CONSIDRR THE SKY LINE 



In the arrangement of planting, one 

 great object, which is one of the great 

 principles in landscape gardening, is in 

 many cases lost sight of, namely, the 

 consideration of the sky line. Especi- 

 ally in large border plantations this 

 should be applied; here we have tall 

 plantings broken with lower ones, until 

 they finally run out, to very low plants 

 at the edge. In fact, in every bed, as 

 well as in larger displays, the relation of 

 one bed to the other should be treated in 

 this way. While the beds are all more 



the'more gorgeous tinted flowers, so as 

 not to'create too big a contrast. Beds of 

 solid colors, alternating with some of less 

 contrast, will harmoniously tie the entire 

 display together . and this will help 

 greatly to achieve the desired plan. It 

 is in the designer's power to present a 

 very brilliant or a very quiet picture, 

 according to the scheme that is required. 



Sub-tropical effects may be produced 

 by the use of reeds and grasses in com- 

 bination with lafge leaved plants. Try a 

 bed with plants of "Arundo donax" and 

 castor oil beans in the centre surrounded 

 by cannas, and an outside border of 

 "Caladium esculentum." 



Rhubarb may be forced in the garden 

 by means of boxes, without top or bot- 

 tom, placed over the plants, banked 

 around with maiuiif and covered with 

 glass. 



