322 TROPICAL EFFECTS 



For, in the first place, tender plants can never harmonize with 

 a Northern climate. Their transitory nature is too obvious. When 

 you look upon a canna bed you know that it will be a blank expanse 

 of earth all winter, while our Northern trees are revealing beauties 

 of outline and structure that are hid in summer. The tropics are 

 beautiful the year round, but we intensify our winter bleakness and 

 poverty if we make gardens that are bare five twelfths of the year. 



The winter ugliness of a tropical bedding system might be 

 forgiven if the summer effect were pure and good. But one half 

 of it is as weak as it is well intentioned, while the other is as impure 

 as it is strong. 



For example, the plants that really enjoy our summer heat, 

 such as coleus, alternanthera, and acalypha, are the worst dis- 

 turbers of the peace. Their leaves may be showier than hardy 

 flowers, but they are gaudy and monotonous. The purest and 

 sweetest way to get colour in a garden is to have a succession of 

 hardy flowers. In Chapter XXIV I showed how we can have 

 flowers quite as long by the hardy system, and beautiful foliage 

 two months longer. 



On the other hand, there is no nobler or more characteristic 

 tropical growth than the palm. But its nobility depends some- 

 what upon stature. Moreover, palms do not bear flowers or 

 fruit until they reach a considerable age and height. The only 

 way we can enjoy them to the full in the North is to have extra 

 tall greenhouses built for them taller than private means can 

 afford. The day will come when every large city will have its 

 palm houses where people may enjoy the wonders of the tropics 

 in something like their native grandeur. Meanwhile, the palms, 

 bananas, rubber plants, and dracsenas that are grown primarily 

 for summer show outdoors are a pitiful substitute for the real thing. 



