<,.'. HARDY HERBACEOUS PLANTS 



THE old style of flower gardening, with its ribbon borders and 

 tender plants put out in beds late in May, is supposed by supporters 

 of hardy flowers to have passed away for ever. A glance over some 

 of the principal nurseries and market gardens in spring, or of the 

 public parks in summer, would show how mistaken that supposition 

 is. There are probably more Zonal Geraniums (Pelargoniums) 

 grown in gardens at the present time than there were in the days 

 when this flower was in the heyday of its popularity ; but they have 

 become commonplace, and are not much talked about. 



Hardy herbaceous plants are now discussed and exhibited as 

 tender bedders once were. We see group after group of them at 

 the great flower shows. Geraniums may be exhibited by one 

 nurseryman, and hardy plants by twenty. Well-to-do amateurs, 

 who used to specialise in Geraniums, now vent their enthusiasm 

 on Phloxes, Paeonies, Delphiniums, and Pyrethrums. We as little 

 expect to see fashion cultivating ribbon borders as wearing crino- 

 lines and high stocks. 



Is the change to be deplored ? Assuredly, no. The cheerful old 

 Zonal nobly played a part, and indeed plays it still. It is a bright, 

 free-blooming, general utility plant a sort of maid-of-all-work among 

 flowers. But the combinations which it forms with its sister bedders, 

 the yellow Calceolaria and the blue Lobelia, lack the interest and 

 variety of associations of the finest hardy plants. 



The tendency in flower gardening nowadays is to have an expanse 

 of well-kept turf where geometrical bedding designs formerly existed, 

 and to surround the grass with broad borders, filled with chosen 

 hardy flowers. If the borders are as spacious as the size of the 



