NINETEEXril CENTURY. 295 



fashion of what is known as " bedding out," came in, and 

 old-fashioned plants, which had been the pride of our gardens 

 for centuries, were banished to make room for these new- 

 comers. In an Essay on Landscape Gardening by Morris, 

 in 1825,* he advocates this plan, which was then quite a new 

 one. *' The beauty of the flower-garden, in the summer 

 season," he writes, " may be heightened by planting in beds 

 some of the most freely-flowering young and healthy green- 

 house plants. Where there is an extent of greenhouse, a 

 sufficient quantity of plants should be grown annually for this 

 purpose, and should be sunk in the beds about the middle 

 or end of May. The following are among the most beautiful 

 of this species : Anagallis grandiflora, Anagallis Monelli, 

 Heliotropium grandiflorum, Fuchsia coccinea, Lobelia Erinus 

 and unidentata, Hemimeris urticifolia, Alstroemeria peregrina, 

 Bouvardia triphylla, Geraniums of sorts, Lychnis coronaria, 

 Linum trigynum." These are what Morris suggests, but other 

 plants, Petunias, Zinnias, Begonias, Ageratum, Calceolarias, and 

 many more, might now be added to the list, besides the 

 numerous foliage plants, such as Coleus, Echiverias, Cerastiums, 

 Draccenas, also Alternanthera, and other low growing things 

 which are used for carpet bedding. More skill is now^ used in 

 the selection of colours and arrangements of plants, some fine 

 effects being thus produced with these combinations. Graceful 

 and more feathering plants are planted among the old-fashioned 

 bedding plants, such as a groundwork of some self-coloured 

 viola, relieved by tall standards of ivy-leafed Geranium, 

 Draccenas, Cannas, or Grevillea robusta. At first the bedding-out 

 consisted in merely filling the beds with flowers to produce 

 as great a blaze of colour as possible. Trentham garden is 

 described in 1859 as a " startling mass of Geraniums and 

 Calceolarias," and this alone was the aim of the gardeners in 

 many places. 



There is a very large folio volume by A. E. Brooke, 

 in which are depicted what were then considered the 

 finest gardens in England. f Most of them are Italian in 



* Essay on Landscape Gardeni)ig. By Richard Morris, 1S25. 

 f Gardens of E)igland. By A. E. Brooke, 1858. 



