September 12, 1878. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
205 
of affording much pleasure, as they are of displaying real skill 
and chaste artistic beauty, formal, perhaps even artificial, but 
not the less on that account, but rather the more are the beds 
attractive. 
Possibly the extended employment of dwarf ornamental- 
foliaged plants has created a want of a corresponding nature 
—a desire for flowers. It is certain that flowerless gardens 
will never be popular in England, and it is a long time since 
flowers—sweet and beautiful old border flowers—had so many 
admirers as they have now. Advanced florists have little or no 
sympathy with artistic flower gardening, it is too artificial. 
Artificial! As if it were half so artificial as their own art of 
plucking out and arranging the petals of one flower, curling 
those of another, flattening those of a third, and so on, It is 
easy to find fault, but not easy to do so consistently. 
In Victoria Park carpet bedding is extensively and skilfully 
conducted. The beds are models of good taste, and worthy of 
a journey from one side of England to the other by those who 
desire to see first-rate examples of this mode of decoration. 
Yet numerous as are the beds referred to, let the truth be told 
that they do not occupy a fiftieth of the space that is devoted 
to hardy flowering plants—mixed borders. The mile in length 
of borders has been crowded with flowers for months past, 
and they are gay now. By the law of contrast these borders 
show to greater advantage the lowly and artistic beds, hence 
the contemporaneous increase of the two modes of garden 
decoration alluded to. 
Yet attractive as are the mixed borders it may be safely 
stated that ninety per cent. of visitors to the park go for the 
purpose of inspecting the carpet beds. These are most finished 
examples of their kind. Very few kinds of plants are em- 
ployed in them, and more than half of them are hardy or 
nearly so; but the different arrangements are chaste in the 
extreme, still bright and cheerful. It were futile attempting 
a detailed description of the beds. Nearly all of them are 
carpeted with the now popular Mentha, which is in admir- 
able condition, brightened by Golden Feather, which is em- 
ployed for forming narrow wire-like boundary lines, enclos= 
ing in some cases individual plants, and in others masses of 
plants of neutral colours. ‘The scroll bed in this park is 
unique of its kind. It is termed the jewel bed, from the deli- 
cate tracery forming the small designs of bright colours, which 
show to great advantage in the emerald setting. Between this 
bed and the broad walk runs a low Privet hedge, but so great 
haye been the crowds of admirers that the fence has been com- 
pletely trodden down, and in places wholly destroyed, and a 
fence of iron is now necessary to keep the crowds off the grass. 
Another bed upwards of 20 feet in diameter is strikingly 
beautiful. The raised centre is carpeted with the rich olive- 
green of Herniaria glabra dotted with Aloes. From the centre 
chain-like festoons of Succulents enclose masses of Sedum 
glaucum, from which rise fine plants of the distinct silvery 
Chamepuce diacantha ; and Mentha and accompanying nick- 
macks are bounded by bright lines of Alternantheras and 
‘Golden Feather, the bed being edged with Succulents. Both 
in design and planting this bed is a masterpiece of the art that 
it represents. There are other, many other, beds of the same 
nature, but varying in pattern and detail, all of which should 
ibe seen by those desirous of obtaining hints on this increasingly 
popular mode of garden decoration. 
It is not difficult to account for the popularity of carpet 
bedding, for apart from the inherent attractiveness of the beds 
their beauty is infinitely more lasting than that of beds of 
flowers. The flower garden proper in this park was grand for 
afew weeks, but the rains washed away its beauty ; the carpet 
beds, on the other hand, appear to shine brighter by the 
‘drenching they received. But although these beds may be 
inspected with great advantage and in a measure may be 
imitated, still it is not to be expected that similarly highly 
finished examples can be produced in all private gardens where 
carpet bedding is desired. In the London parks the whole 
resources of manager and men are devoted to the keeping of 
the beds, but in private gardens a hundred other wants must 
be supplied, and the beds can only have a share of attention. 
That is a condition that should ever be borne in mind when 
the relative merits of public and private flower gardening are 
under consideration. 
The subtropical beds are also excellent, and indeed the whole 
park is in the high-class condition that merited, as it received, 
the high approval of the Prime Minister on a recent visit of 
inspection. Mr. McIntyre and the skilled gardener Mr. Bullen 
have good cause to be satisfied with their achievements this 
year ; they have set themselves a great task for the future, for 
of course they must go on improving.—J. W. 
PORTRAITS OF PLANTS AND FLOWERS. 
PHILODENDRON SERPENS. Vat. ord., Aroider. Linn., 
Moneecia Tetrandria.—‘ Imported from New Grenada by 
Messrs. Veitch, and well suited for the wall-decoration of a 
humid tropical house.” —(Bot. Mag., t. 6375.) 
CASTILLEJA INDIVISA, at. ord., Scrophulariaceer. Linn., 
Didynamia Angiospermia.— Castilleja indivisa is one of the 
most brilliantly coloured of the genus, its bracts, which are 
orange-scarlet in a young state, in age become of an intense 
carmine red and last a very long time; they were in beauty 
in the beginning of May, and continued until the last week of 
July, in the border of the rockwork of Kew. Mr. Thompson. 
of Ipswich, who sent the plant to Kew, observes that it seems 
easy to raise and to rear, that it was grown under glass, and 
that the colour of the bracts would deepen out of doors (which 
has been the case). It is a native of Texas, and described by 
A. Gray as a winter annual, flowering in spring without the 
survival of the radical leayes.”—(Lbid., t. 6376.) 
ALOE Coopert. Vat. ord., Liliacee. Linn., Hexandria 
Monogynia,—‘ The present plant was discovered by Burchell 
in the year 1814, in the neighbourhood of Uitenhage, flowering 
in January and February. It was refound in 1862, by Mr. 
Thomas Cooper, on grassy plains in Natal, and brought by him 
to this country in a living state. It has been for some time 
at Kew, but it has not yet flowered. The drawing was made 
by Mr. Wilson Saunders froma plant that flowered at Reigate.” 
—(Lbid., t. 6377.) 
GILIA BRANDEGEI. Vat. ord., Polemoniaces. ZLinn., Pent- 
andria Monogynia.—“It is an exceedingly rare plant, dis- 
covered by the very intelligent and energetic collector whose 
name it bears, on perpendicular rocks at the source of the Rio 
Grande, in the rocky mountains of §.W. Colorado. It was 
again found by Drs. Gray and Lamborn, very sparingly, on 
the Sierra Blanca, in Southern Colorado, in July, 1877, at an 
elevation of upwards of 12,000 feet. Mr. Thompson of Ipswich 
raised it from Colorado seed, and flowered in May of the 
present year.” —(Ibid., t. 6378.) 
HUERNIA BREVIROSTRIS. Wat. ord., Asclepiadacez. Linn., 
Pentandria Monogynia.—‘ It was discovered by Mr. Bolus on 
the dry rocky hills of Ryneveld’s Pass, near Graaff Reinet, in 
South Africa, at an altitude of 2700 feet, where it is tolerably 
common, and flowers in April. A drawing was made from 
a plant sent to Kew by Mr. Bolus, which flowered in August, 
1875.”—(Lbid., t. 6379.) 
MArica BRACHYPUS. Wat. ord., Ividacee. Linn., Triandria 
Monogynia.— Imported by Mr, Wilson Saunders from Trini- 
dad about the year 1871, and presented by him to the Royal 
Gardens several years later. With us it flowers in August, 
and requires stove treatment.”—(Lbid., t. 6380.) 
ASHBURNE HOUSE, 
THE RESIDENCE OF EDWARD BACKHOUSE, ESQ. 
OF the many residences of the opulent situated in the enyi- 
rons of our great seaport towns few excel in sylvan beauty or 
horticultural interest the charming retreat at Ashburne. The 
mansion, a noble pile of stone, stands upon a gentle eminence 
about a mile due south of the flourishing town of Sunderland, 
with its wide and clean streets, noble buildings, and small but 
pretty and well-kept park, which, judging from the number: 
of persons we saw there, is appreciated, and deservedly so. 
Ryhope Road, by which we wended our way to Ashburne, is 
rendered particularly pleasing by the trees that skirt and in 
many places overhang it. The approach to Ashburne is by a 
pretty lodge through the avenue of trees, which, considering 
the near proximity of so large a town as Sunderland, thrive 
remarkably well. The principal or carriage entrance is from 
the north side of the house, with the customary spacious 
breadth of gravel, ornamented by standard Rhododendrons in 
tubs. 
Passing the gates and traversing a walk to the left 10 feet in 
breadth—clean, smooth, and firm, consequently comfortable, as 
well as pleasing to the eye from its graceful curve and grate- 
ful colour, pale yellow—we are at once struck with the beauty 
that meets the eye, turn what way it may. Rhododendrons do 
remarkably well, being the principal evergreens, there being 
just enough of them to heighten the effect of the deciduous 
