72 Notes on Flower Garden Plants. 



the year. They might be filled with hyacinths, crocuses, 

 tulips, and other spring-flowering bulbs, but we have not 

 found the system to work well in practice : — First ; the bulbs 

 are not matured in season to admit of being taken up in time 

 to plant the summer flowers, and the same difficulty occurs 

 in the fall, by having to plant the bulbs before the beauty of 

 the plants are over. A few hardy evergreens, kept on pur- 

 pose in pots or otherwise, may be used with advantage in 

 filling up these beds during Avinter. In geometrical flower 

 gardens, where a series of figures are designed and formed 

 with mathematical precision forming a perfect whole, so that 

 the removal of any one of the figures would be an evident 

 disarrangement of the plan, massing is most efl'ective. We 

 have seen gardens of this character, each bed filled with a 

 distinct sort, arranged on the principle of contrasting colors, 

 which, for dazzling brflliancy, could not well be surpassed. 

 A garden of this kind is well adapted for placing near the 

 house, where the arrangement can be seen from the windows, 

 for their beauty is most effective when viewed from a dis- 

 tance ; when we come to inspect them closely, there is an 

 apparent stiff'ness and studied formality not universally ad- 

 missible in rural scenery. These highly artistic gardens we 

 consider in best taste when formed in connection with objects 

 of an equally artificial character. When the house is fronted 

 with a terrace, and the latter broad enough to admit of it, 

 then we think nothing can equal the effect of an elegantly- 

 designed geometrical flower garden, with its accompaniments 

 of fountains, vases, sundials, and statuary. Situated thus, 

 it becomes necessary to decorate the flower beds in style to 

 correspond with surrounding objects, and here the system of 

 contrasting masses of vivid colors, if skilfully managed, 

 would, in our opinion, be in most perfect taste. 



Our principal objection to the above style of flower ar- 

 rangement lies in its misapplication. We have seen what 

 would otherwise have been a beautiful lawn, completely 

 marred in effect by being cut up into a formal design of 

 flower beds. A smooth, well-kept lawn immediately in front 

 of a mansion, flanked with appropriate beltings of trees, bor- 



