US 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



specks, is derived from the principle that there must not only 

 be parts but predominating parts, all tending to one har- 

 monious effect. Therefore, in arranging flowering plants in a 

 conservatory, or for the furnishing of rooms, each colour 

 should be carried on in the same manner throughout. 



One great object in grouping plants and flowers in con- 

 servatories, rooms, vases, baskets, and epergnes for dinner- 

 table decorations, is not to have a bewildering excess of gay 

 flowers. It requires good taste to manage many colours without 

 producing weakness and confusion. The great need is to have 

 a background and a carpet of green. The Lycopodium denti- 

 culatum is the best carpet plant that I know of for the pur- 

 pose. Any green leaves will do for the background. Then, if 

 your plants are all in flower, this is the place to show them off 

 to the best advantage. Do not crowd them, but scatter them 

 about in clusters with some of the choicest gleaming up in un- 

 expected places. Such groups are very effective. 



In dinner-table arrangement the safe rule is to keep to 

 Bimple contrasts. I have seen tables look hideous with clumsy 

 piles of flowers dreseed-up, trimmed, and stiffened, and made 

 bo artificial that all traces of nature were lost, their leaves 

 stripped off, and the colours pressed-up together with scarcely 

 a twig or green spray to be seen. The tide does, indeed, seem 

 turned against the crowded flower-stands, and the heaped-on 

 colours that used to fill-up epergnes and encumber drawing- 

 rooms and dinner tables. 



Nothing has done more to bring about this change than the 

 good taste of the judges at flower shows. People have such 

 different tastes in arranging flowers that it really becomes a 

 difficult point to write upon ; still everyone can say what they 

 have seen look well. I for one have great faith in decorations 

 that look natural and graceful, and that can only be achieved 

 by a free use of foliage plants. Ferns being the most suitable, 

 their fronds being so beautiful, and they enhance also the 

 beauty of flowers. 



It is a safe rule to vary the shades and quantity of green 

 according to the flowers — namely, if the colours of your flowers 

 are bright, and red predominates, the foliage must be dark 

 green and plenty of it. If the flowers of these shades are deli- 

 cate the green may be delicate also and less of it. This lesson 

 with many more we can take from nature. In the spring all 

 nature is decked with pale green bespangled with soft delicate 

 colours, and as the season advances the greens darken and the 

 flowers brighten. Surely from this we might learn how to 

 arrange them best as a work of art. Who can look at the 

 colours of nature so bright, so bold, so sensitively soft, so 

 freely distributed, yet so charmingly adjusted, and not learn a 

 lesson therefrom ? The groundwork always judicious in tint 

 heightens the lustre of all above it. Look at the tints upon 

 the rock — every shade of grey and gold, green and red; the 

 beautiful Heather and shining golden Gorse, with blue and 

 grey marl and stones — a mingling of Buch colours that cannot 

 but be admired. Who could find fault with our moors and 

 mountain Bides covered with the rosy flush of the pink Heath 

 Bells, and near them the ground carpeted with Blue Bells, the 

 purple Violets, and the Primrose tuft nestled beneath the 

 bowery hedge on which hangs the wild Rose interwoven with 

 tho waxy Honeysuckle with its coral points and ripening 

 berries clustering, and waving, and twining themselves into 

 garlands ? In nature we see flowers that hang on and festoon 

 the steep sides of rocks, and the dark brown trunks of trees, 

 and that cling to old grey walls. Then from nature let us 

 take our directions for the arrangements of flowers for the 

 drawing-room and dinner table. 



We must say something about the vase containing them. 

 Brown baskets, white marble, and glass, these are the most 

 suitable in which to group flowers. The glass vases, baBketB, 

 and Btands that Mr. March designed are particularly appro- 

 priate, and are generally admired. 



In a group of three the centrepiece should be the keynote, 

 and ought to be a few inches higher than the others. They 

 should be filled with flowers distinct from those in the two 

 ends, which may be made to match. The general arrange- 

 ment has to be considered, and must be ruled by a colour 

 agreeing with the centrepiece, that the colours may make a 

 harmonising whole. On the contrary, if the three vases were 

 to contain the same coloured flowers we should have a most 

 heavy-looking and yet disjointed picture. 



The loveliest vases that I have Been exhibited were those 

 shown by Miss HaEBardof Upper Norwood. Her arrangements 

 are exquisite, they have always a light and elegant appearance. 

 The feathered Ferns are placed to form a drooping ring of fresh 



green fronds around the edge of the vase. This seems to be 

 the first consideration. Then all around again a fringe of 

 drooping flowery sprigs of brilliant colours spreading and nest- 

 ling in the cool green Fern leaves. Then the centre is filled 

 with harmonising colours, the full beauty of every flower being 

 visible, and to give a still more natural effect a few taBseled 

 spikes of Grass are seen dotting and waving above the whole. 

 All is done with a truly artistic touch, grouped and shaded 

 without a discordant tint. 



If we have flowers which do not accord together they force 

 us to crowd them, and half the beauty of flowers oonsists in 

 the graceful shape of each special epray, and it does seem 

 perfect waste wedging and massing as much together as, if 

 rightly used, would be sufficient to fill half a dozen vases. 



After mentioning the principles which guide us in the arrang- 

 ing of flowers it is not necessary to dwell in detail of the 

 varieties to bo used, for these are decided by local circum- 

 stances, and are dependant for their effect on individual taste 

 and dexterity. — N. Cole. 



OKNAMENTAL AND USEFUL TBEE-PLANTING. 



No. 1. 



To say that every Englishman has an innate passion for 

 tree-planting is a truism which needed no Washington Irving 

 to inculcate it, though indirectly his testimony from across the 

 Atlantic evinces the superiority of this passion to the accidents 

 of country or climate. It is a fact that Americans grow 

 rapturous at the sight of the stately Oaks and Elms of the 

 mother country, as if discriminating between these adornments 

 of our parks and gardens and the giant tenants of their own 

 forests and prairies, with a partiality for the former. But that 

 this penchant is exceptionally national becomes more patent 

 if we attempt to assess the difference between the associations 

 of the ancients as to forests, tree?, and woodland scenery, and 

 those which they call up in the British mind. Whilo Greeks 

 and Romans seem to have identified a plantation with a dense, 

 dark, or sadly-sighing body of trees, they are seldom found 

 exulting in the changeful hues of the greenwood, the soothing 

 walk under the bee-haunted Limes, or those sylvan courts of 

 leafy verdure which tempt the moBt unromantie to envy the 

 forester and sigh for the freedom of Robin Hood and Maid 

 Marian. Athens, it is true, could boast its Oaks of Parnes ; 

 but these were most considered for the Bake of their charcoal, 

 the Olive being the tree which quickened, beyond others, the 

 pride and enthusiasm of its poets. There were Beech groves 

 in the mountain districts of Greece, on the range next below 

 the Pines ; but the Beech does not seem to have had any 

 strong attraction for the Greek eye, though its glossy green is 

 such a charming feature in our parks and glades. The Plane, 

 indeed, in their poetry meets with the commemoration due to 

 its light green feathery foliage ; but if we pass in review the 

 items of Greek arboriculture, it will be Been that the Fig and 

 Pomegranate claim scarcely less notice, and that perhaps their 

 chief affection was bestowed upon the Cypress and Myrtle, the 

 Tamarisk, and such lesser shrubs. From the Romans no 

 doubt Great Britain derived not only a goodly addition to her 

 indigenous trees, but also the first rudiments of the culture of 

 this class of products. Besides our best fruit trees, they are 

 held to have naturalised the Chestnut, Lime, Sycamore, Box, 

 and Laurel. They may also have introduced the Bsech, seeing 

 that, according to Caesar, it was not found in Britain, and that 

 its Welsh name Fawydd (th. Fagus) — (Hereford derived its 

 Welsh name of Tre-fawydd from the Beech trees near it) — 

 smacks of a Latin origin. The English Elm, too, which is 

 essentially a southern tree and rarely seeds in England, may 

 easily have been introduced by them with the Vine ; and to 

 them in all probability we owe our first initiation in forestry, 

 the art of rearing coppice-wood for Vine poles, Willows for 

 wicker-work, and timber for house and ship-building. 



Howbeit we have outstript our teachers ; and, as much from 

 inborn predilection as from a constant tradition of the pleasure 

 and profit of tree-planting, so far covered with indigenous and 

 imported tree growths the hills and dales, the waste places and 

 green swards, the suburban Bpots and rural spaces of our 

 island, that its levels are disguised by a variety of belts and 

 coverts ; its uplands clothed with Larch and Firwood ; its 

 parks and gardens embellished by ancient sylvan giants and 

 audacious rivals from aoross the seas ; its lesser holdings 

 dotted with fancy Conifers and interesting triumphs of per- 

 sistent acclimatation ; and, to come to London and our great 

 cities, each square and crescent has its mimio park. There are 



