206 GARDEN DESIGN 



A garden is planted for several reasons : decora- 

 tion, shelter, privacy, to enhance natural beauties 

 and to hide unsightly objects. 



Purely decorative planting is in connexion with 

 the more formal parts of the garden, dominated 

 by the architecture of house and terrace, and 

 exotic plants are in keeping with other evidences 

 of human attention. Brilliance and neatness 

 should be its characteristics, and the bedding out 

 system is undoubtedly suitable for formal beds. 

 That and carpet bedding have fallen in public 

 esteem, for when crude strips of yellow, red and 

 blue were to be seen in every little villa front 

 garden, there came the usual reaction in favour 

 of simpler work. However, no one who has seen 

 Belvoir Castle gardens in spring, or the gardens 

 along Prince's Street, Edinburgh, in summer, 

 can fail to recognise that there are places where 

 bedding out is eminently fit. With the increased 

 selection of colours in the commonly employed 

 bedding plants, such as geraniums and begonias, 

 and the introduction of fixed types, both in colour 

 and height, in hardy things such as snapdragons, 

 pentstemons and violas, and also in tender annuals 

 such as phlox Drummondii, asters and stocks, the 

 designer has (so to speak) a greatly enlarged 

 palette which he is beginning to appreciate. 

 Even hardy annuals are now so fixed in named 

 varieties that bedding-out effects may be had for 

 a few penn'orths of seed, and no glass house. With 



