88 OUR GARDENS 



change wrouglit within half a century upon British 

 and Irish gardens — the direct result of Mr. Robinson's 

 crusade ; with the valuable corollary that hundreds of 

 amateurs, whose interest could be but feebly stirred 

 by the damnable iteration of bedding-out, now find 

 intelligent solace in cultivating an infinite variety of 

 hardy exotics and flowering shrubs. 



Still there may be recognised symptoms of the sin 

 that doth so easily beset amateur gardeners — that of 

 running into extremes. The first and most salutary 

 consequence of the reaction against bedding-out was to 

 restore the herbaceous border to its importance. 

 Persons who have passed the meridian of life may 

 remember the excitement of recovering forgotten 

 favourites from kitchen borders, of chaffering with 

 cottagers for lilies and auriculas in their plots. We 

 did not then aim at striking effect; we were content 

 in regaining flowers rich in association with an older 

 world than ours — satisfied to enjoy the individual 

 beauties of crown imperials, columbines, irises, dittany, 

 and the like. But owing to the perverse, though un- 

 written, decree that herds so many country families 

 into London during the fairest months of the year — 

 the months of theflowers — the arrangementof the herba- 

 ceous border was of necessity committed, as a rule, to 

 gardeners trained in the conventions of bedding-out. 

 They attempted to treat herbaceous plants with a 

 formality for which most of them are wholly unsuited. 

 The surest way to mar the grace of this class of flower- 

 ing herbs is so to plant them at regular intervals, 

 repeating the same group over and over again at 



