3 o8 HARDY BEDDING 



have gardens. But every foot of England was, broadly speaking, 

 cultivated to the utmost then, as now, so that the land was filled 

 with old and precious gardens. This beauty was suddenly de- 

 faced when the bedding mania swept all hardy flowers out of many 

 old gardens and transformed England into one gigantic crazy 

 quilt. It is only faint echoes of all this that come to us in books. 

 I used to think such talk merely "literary." But everywhere in 

 England last summer I heard about "the real thing" from old 

 men, who were refused admission to flower shows for their lark- 

 spurs, peonies, irises, and other hardy flowers. And on many fine 

 estates I heard of great sums wasted in trying and discarding the 

 bedding system. 



Yet there was really some sense in the bedding system in the 

 early forties. China and Japan had not been opened to the world 

 and, therefore, about one half of the best hardy plants now cul- 

 tivated were then unknown. Moreover, hardy plants, as a rule, 

 bloom only two weeks, whereas geraniums, verbenas, and annual 

 phlox will bloom for three months. It is no wonder that the 

 gardeners tired of the hardy flowers then known, because many of 

 them were unsightly, or at least commonplace, in foliage. For 

 instance, the foliage becomes shabby in forget-me-nots, colum- 

 bines, and sweet williams after these have bloomed; it is rather 

 coarse and weedy in foxgloves and hollyhocks; subject to disease 

 in phlox and larkspurs; commonplace in asters and gaillardias; 

 and often disappears after blooming, as in the case of Oriental 

 poppies. 



Another reason why the old gardeners sickened of hardy plants 

 is that the ordinary mixed border was not then, and is not now, 

 artistic. They used to "dot" and "repeat," i. e., use the same 

 kind of plant singly in all parts of the border, the effect of which 



