CHAPTER XXV 

 THE RIGHT AND WRONG KIND OF TROPICAL EFFECTS 



What England can teach us about hardy "foliage plants" They 

 cost less than tender ones and harmonize with Northern sur- 

 roundings Beautiful leaf forms preferable to gaudy colours 



ENGLAND has the right attitude toward the beautiful 

 plants that come from the tropics. We have not. 

 England knows how to get the spirit of tropical beauty 

 and harmonize it with that of a Northern clime. We aim at the 

 letter and succeed only in getting a meretricious and evanescent 

 show of colour which does not harmonize with our climate and 

 costs more than the better way of doing things. 



We are just about seventy years behind England in this 

 respect. For it was about 1840 that England was taken by the 

 craze for tender bedding. You will still find in England coleus 

 and other foliage plants of gaudy colour in beds that are quite 

 as geometrical and complicated as those in any public park of 

 America. There are also private gardens in the old style that are 

 preserved as faithfully as if they were paintings of a school which, 

 though no longer esteemed, has its place in the history of art. 

 And in a country that is an endless succession of gardens you 

 naturally expect to find every style of gardening and every shade 

 of opinion. But England, as a whole, has definitely abandoned 

 the bedding folly which still defaces American parks and is particu- 

 larly obnoxious in private gardens. England has put her faith 



in hardy plants and I believe she will never change again. 



321 



