OF FORMAL GARDENS 69 



gardens were ablaze to the right with scarlet 

 geraniums, yellow calceolarias, and purple ver- 

 benas ; to the left with verbenas, scarlet geraniums, 

 and calceolarias. The changes were rung over and 

 over again to one reiterated chime. Foliage plants 

 were pressed into the service by way of variety 

 perilla, dark and lurid, "to remind us of our 

 latter end," as a worthy old gardener was fond 

 of saying, with a twinkle in his eye, and crimson 

 and golden beets. Then tesselated work with suc- 

 culent plants came into vogue grey-leaved eerie- 

 verias and green-leaved sedums on a carpet of 

 red altenanthera. But after a time every effort 

 began to pall, and we turned regretfully to the 

 memory of fragrant homely borders filled with 

 pinks and gillyflowers and favourite old perennials, 

 to sweet savours of rosemary and lavender, and 

 to wish them back again. 



But there is a place for all things, and it is 

 very certain that wherever spectacular effect is 

 desirable formal beds and parterres can never be 

 quite dispensed with. The violent reaction, how- 

 ever, which set in against the stiffness and mono- 

 tony of the earlier bedding-out system has done 

 good work. We have only to make a tour of 

 the parks and public gardens of London, Hampton 

 Court, and elsewhere, to see the splendid use that 

 is now made of the wealth of decorative material 

 at our disposal plants from all parts of the world 

 of which no one would have ventured even to 

 dream twenty years ago. The improvement is so 

 manifest that the most inveterate hater of garden 

 monotony can hardly fail to acknowledge that for 



