132 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



form, to the ordinarily flat and monotonous surface of the garden.. 

 This system has taught us the vahie of grace and verdure amid 

 masses of low, brilliant, and unrelieved flowers, or rather, has 

 reminded us how far we have diverged from nature's ways of 

 displaying the beauty of vegetation. Sub-tropical gardening has 

 taught us that one of the greatest mistakes ever made in the 

 flower garden was the adoption of a few varieties of plants for 

 culture on a vast scale, to the exclusion of interest and variety, 

 and too often of beauty and taste. 



The ability to make a good selection of the most beautiful and 

 useful from the great mass of plants known, is the gardener's 

 pride, and in no branch must he exercise it more thoroughly than 

 in this. Some of the plants used are indispensable — the differ- 

 ent kinds of E-icinus, Cannas in great variety, Colocasias, Palms, 

 many fine kinds of Dracaenas, Yuccas, Agaves, Cycads, Pampas 

 grass, Arundos, Rheums, Acanthuses, Wigandias, Rims glahra 

 laciniata, Aralia Jajwnica : — all of these, and more, are used to 

 good advantage. 



Where such plants are not available, by a judicious selection 

 from the vast number of hardy perennial plants now grown in. 

 this country, and by associating with these flowering shrubs 

 selected for special grace, height, and beauty of outline, a per- 

 manent garden can be secured that will, with but little care, out- 

 rival in beauty any attempt at formal bedding upon the old lines 

 of carpet work, and never cease to be a "thing of beauty and a 

 joy forever." 



The true motive is for a restful, quiet arrangement of border 

 planting and grouping, for harmony in color, and not for glaring, 

 striking effects. Much of this effect is secured b}^ the aid of 

 foliage plants, and not with flowers. 



There are two localities set apart for floral exhibits in the 

 open borders in Washington Park, where the design of the 

 grounds is somewhat formal, and at no other points a,re flowers 

 used. The interior of the park is treated in a simple manner, 

 the main feature of the tree growth being the size and beauty 

 of the elms. A large number of ornamental trees and shrubs have 

 been introduced, but they are so distributed as not to become 

 prominent features of the landscape, the shrubs being confined to 

 borders for screens, or massed for color efl'ects, or treated as speci- 

 mens, with ample space for individual growth and expression. 



