UNSPOILT FLOWERS 



New Zealand Flax (Arundo), Pampas Grass (Gynerium 

 or Cortaderia), Giant Hemlock (Heracleum), the Silvery 

 Leaved Polygonum, Yucca and Flame Flower (Tritoma). 

 These are for the garden fringe where formality disappears 

 and man's handiwork is no longer self-proclaimed. There 

 is not one of the plants I have named that does not 

 look best in the company of its fellows. Plants are con- 

 servative in that they are most attractive when disposed 

 with others of their kind a Daisy path, a field of Wild 

 Orchis, a woodland walk with Bluebells bordered all 

 these are perfect in their way, but mix them up, and what 

 disaster, what incongruity ! So, too, with cultivated 

 plants. 



I have never had the inclination to count the number 

 of kinds of plants, " dot " plants, groundwork plants, 

 corner plants, edging plants, and all the rest of them 

 that go to make up one of those mixed borders that are 

 so popular in public parks and gardens. I wish that I had 

 filled a page of my notebook (it would have needed quite 

 a page to enumerate them) that I might now expose 

 the strange mixture, accentuate the hopeless incon- 

 gruity. Alas ! I have missed an opportunity. Let me 

 put in a plea for the simple way of growing flowers, 

 the way that is within the reach of everyone. If you 

 must have a bed of Geraniums, by all means do so ; but 

 rather than dot it here and there with the graceful Acacia, 

 or the handsome-leaved Ricinus, or the silvery-leaved 

 Artemisia, let the Geraniums have a flower bed to them- 



73 



