410 Variety in Flower- Gardens. 



tractive, is commonly set down as the more perfect result ; a 

 decision which, upon the face of it, appears questionable. 



But it does not therefore follow that colors should not be 

 massed. To be effective, color must be decided or obvious, 

 and to be decided or obvious, it must not be too much broken 

 or isolated. It seems, therefore, on the whole, that the effort 

 to be made is rather to contract than to enlarge the groups of 

 flower-garden plants, in order that a given space may show a 

 contrast or variety of color, instead of an unbroken monoto- 

 nous hue. Size is, however, always relative, and what is 

 large in one place would be small in another, so that no ab- 

 solute rule as regards the size of masses can be drawn in 

 respect to the distribution of colors. 



It is some years since the circle was first recommended 

 as the most desirable figure for flower-beds, and it is now, as 

 it was then, true, that the more perfectly angles in flower- 

 beds, and especially acute angles, are avoided, the better ; 

 that is to say, if the bed is to represent a mass or any formal 

 combination of colors ; for there is a tendency towards rotun- 

 dity hi the growth of all plants, which renders it next to im- 

 possible that angular outlines — especially sharply angular 

 ones — should be fairly filled out with flowers. 



The circular or rotund style of flower-beds certainly Offers 

 one of the readiest means of promoting variety in flower-gar- 

 dens planted on the grouping or massing system. Instead of 

 being entirely filled with one kind of plant, such beds may 

 be very readily planted either in zones, or in divergent rays, 

 and from the simplicity of their form, these arrangements of 

 the plants, and consequently of the colors, are obvious, and, 

 being obvious, they are eflective. This can never be the 

 case with intricately fitted angles, which, though pretty 

 enough on paper, or aven when cut out on the ground, lose 

 all their distinctness when the plants come to grow up in 

 them. 



Whether or no circular beds, or beds of rotund character, 

 become more generally adopted, it seems to be desirable that 

 an attempt should be made to impart greater variety to mod- 

 ern flower-gardens, by the more frequent adoption of what 



