308 



JOUBNAL OF HOBTIOULTUBE AND COTTAGE GABDENEB. 



[ October 19, 1877. 



lary in searching for terms peculiarly descriptive ol this mode 

 of embellishment. It will suffice, however, to refer to it under 

 the " old familiar name " of carpet bedding, leaving each to 

 choose the special appellation he deems moBt appropriate. 



Much has been written for and against this mode of garden 

 ornamentation — some considering it not only as being the most 

 advanced but the most excellent expression of decorative art, 

 while others denounce it as being harsh, formal, and un- 

 natural. 



The mode of decoration adopted in gardens is simply a 

 question of taste, and taste in flowers, as in dress, varies. If 

 mistakes have been made in the arrangements of colours in the 

 garden they have not been so numerous and so flagrant as to 

 justify the system of carpet bedding being described by a con- 

 temporary as " glaring." Formal it is ; indeed, formality is 



its essenoe. If it is not formal (exact) it is nothing. But 

 over-colouring has certainly not been the characteristic of 

 those beds which during the present season have had the 

 greatest share of public approval. 



Carpet beds may be and are arranged in the most quiet of 

 colours, of which the accompanying engraving from a photo- 

 graph of the central bed in Mr. Ralli's garden at Clapham 

 Park affords a sufficient example. When a bed is planted 

 quite level — that is, in the true carpet style— a diagram affords 

 a fair idea of its effect, but when the soil of one portion of the 

 bed is depressed and another part elevated something more 

 becomes necessary to enable the appearance of the bed to be 

 adequately understood. It is not asserted that the illustration 

 is of the best carpet bed ever seen, but it is submitted as onn 

 of the most distinct and pleasing that has been arranged in a 



Fig. 60. — CABP£T BED AT CLEVELAND HOU 



private garden. It is not a bed that is appropriate to any 

 garden, nor are the means of every garden such as to enable 

 this mode of embellishment being carried out successfully. It 

 is submitted as an example of chasteness in colouring and 

 excellence in execution, and also because the great majority of 

 the plants employed in it are comparatively hardy. The 

 planting of this bed has been described as follows by a visitor 

 who inspected it in August : — Fancy a huge hollow and rather 

 deep saucer-like dish 12 feet across with a rim a foot in diameter, 

 and in the centre of this dish a raised mound, formed after the 

 style of an inverted bowl, this mound being about 3 feet across 

 the top and proportionately wider at the base, and about 3 feet 

 high. Such is the ground-plan of the bed, and now for the 

 mode of decoration. In the centre of the mound is an elegant 

 speoimen of Dracaena indivisa, rising from a circular base 

 about 2 J feet in diameter of Mesembryanthemum cordifolium 

 variegatum ; this is surrounded with a ring 2 inches in diameter 

 of the green Sedum Lydium, followed by a circle of Echeveria 

 secunda glauca. Next comes a broad band about 8 inches 

 wide of Sedum glauoum, in which at regular distances are 

 richly berried clusters 6 inches across of Nertera depressa, 

 each plant of Nertera being encircled with very small plants 

 of Echeveria secunda glauoa. Next comes a narrow belt 

 round the mound of Alternanthera amcena, margined with 

 Echeveria. At intervals in this outer cirole eight chains of 

 the same plant descend down the sides of the mound, termi- 

 nating in the lowest part of the bed— the "dish" of the 



saucer, each chain enoircling a miniature mound of succulents 

 out of which springs a small plant of the silvery Chamsepuce 

 diacantha. There remains now the groundwork decoration of 

 this design — the whole interior of the saucer and sides of the 

 central mound. It is simply planted and densely covered with 

 the dwarf emerald green Sedum above mentioned. There is 

 yet the rim of the saucer to be noticed. It is a foot or more in 

 width and rather rounded. The inner and outer circles are 

 Echeveria secunda glauca, next two narrow circles of Alter- 

 nanthera amcena, the centre of the rim being a band 6 inches 

 wide of Sedum glaucum, dotted every 3 inches with small 

 round plants of Nertera depressa. The bed is as striking in 

 appearance as it is original in conception and artistic in 

 execution. Every part is excellent, and, being chiefly of 

 neutral colours enlivened with the brilliant bead-like oluster3 

 of Nertera, the more and the longer it is looked at the better 

 it pleases. 



The bed is a worthy example of carpet bedding and of Mr. 

 Legg'a taste. 



The Potato Disease versus Gas Lime. — At p. 288 " W. G." 

 says, " Dress your land well in December or January with gas 

 lime, and you will have no disease." We make our own gas 

 here, and have therefore plenty of gas lime. Last autumn 

 one of the kitchen-garden quarters had a good dressing of it. 

 This spring the same piece was planted with early Potatoes. 

 When lifted not more than one in ten was free, from disease. 



