94 FAMILY RECjt:IPTS. 



strong leaf-bud: nothing is more unsightly in a flower- 

 garden than rose-bushes where this has not been at- 

 tended to. 



J\mlness is the dress and visage of gardening, and if 

 necessary any where, is more especially so in the flower- 

 garden. A gardener who pretends to manage a flower- 

 garden without the most vigilant attention to this point, 

 at all times, is unworthy the charge. The first thing is 

 to have a quick intelligent eye, so as instantly to per- 

 ceive what is wanting, and the second is to be possessed 

 of that principle of activity which immediately sets 

 about supplying the want. Many gardeners have certain 

 times for cleaning up^ S^c. and will go fifty times past a 

 weed, stone, dead leaf, or some such article, Avhich dis- 

 figures or injures a scene, without removing it, merely 

 because the time for cleaning, &c. has not come. This 

 is most abominably formal conduct, deserving the seve- 

 rest reprobation. A gardener ought to have his eye, 

 his head, his heart, his hand, his knife, and apron, ready 

 for action at all times, places, and seasons, when within 

 the precincts of his charge. 



The changeable Jloiccr-garden. The essential principle 

 of this garden consists in the power of changing its pro- 

 ductions at pleasure, so that whenever any plant, or 

 group of plants, begin to decay, they can be removed 

 and their places supplied by others coming into bloom. 

 To admit of this a large reserve nursery is requisite, in 

 which the plants must be kept in pots, and removed and 

 plunged in the borders as wanted. The Chinese, as Sir 

 W, Chambers informs us, excel in this mode of garden- 

 ing; and we have been informed by a traveller who has 

 resided some time at Canton, that he has known a man- 

 darin (or noble) have the whole furniture and style of 

 his parterre changed in a single night, so as next mor- 

 ning to present not only a different description of flow- 

 ers, shrubs, and dwarf-trees, but a different arrangement 

 of the beds and compartments. Something of the same 

 kind is practised in the gardens at the Tuilleries in 

 Paris; in some of the imperial gardens at Petersburg, 

 and in the vice-royal gardens of Monza. Gardens of 

 this description admit of a ycry perfect arrangement 



