for Plants, in lawn Gardens. 



491 



fc 



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9 



that no stirring or manuring will do it 

 much good ; and, therefore, if fine flowers 

 are expected to grow in such gardens, the 

 soil must be renewed annually, or at least 

 every two years : but, even if the soil 

 were renewed frequently, this would not 

 supply the want of a free circulation of 

 air. To attain this object, either the 

 boundary walls of the front garden must 

 be removed, and open iron railings sub- 

 stituted for them, or the beds or borders 

 containing the flowers must be elevated 

 as high as the walls. Sometimes the 

 former mode might be adopted, but the 

 latter will generally be found impracti- 

 cable ; and therefore, as a substitute for 

 it, we would propose elevating the finer 

 flowers in vases fixed on pedestals. The 

 soil contained in these vases, however 

 large they may be {fig. 82. is 8 ft. in 

 diameter), could be renewed every year 

 for a few shillings, and a fresh stock of plants supplied for a few 

 shillings more. The vase would cost, perhaps, Si. or 5l. ; and 

 this is actually less than what the renewal of the soil of the whole 

 garden would cost every year, or at least 

 85 every other year. If, however, this first 



^ cost be thought too great, smaller, and, of 

 course, cheaper, vases might be employed, 

 such as Jigs. 83, 84, 85, 86, and 87. One 

 large vase, or one large and two small vases, 

 would be quite enough for an ordinary street 

 garden : for example, such as those along 

 both sides of the New Road. The area of 

 the garden might be of turf, of gravel, or 

 paved, with a narrow dug border along each 

 of the side walls and in front, planted with 

 bulbs and the commoner evergreen herb- 

 aceous plants (such as pinks, saxifrages, 

 &c), with a few trees and shrubs of showy 

 flowering kinds. If these front gardens were 

 either wholly in turf, excepting always the 

 walk from the gate to the door of the house, 

 or wholly paved, with a very narrow marginal dug border, and 

 the vase or vases forming a point or a line in the centre of the 

 turf or pavement, they would look incomparably better than they 

 do at present. They are now generally laid out entirely in dug 

 beds, either on turf or with box edgings, and small narrow 



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