ANI> TBEIR SETTINGS. 251 



in the green-house, but flourish in the open ground during the 

 summer months with great luxuriance, and are among the brightest 

 and most interesting features of suburban lawns. We have named 

 but few out of many of the plants suitable for forming showy 

 masses or conspicuous single specimens. Descriptive lists of all 

 which are valuable may be found in the illustrated catalogues of 

 the great florists and nurserymen. 



Fig. 4S. 



^^ Q © D Di^> 



Fig. 45, drawn to the scale of one-sixteenth of an inch to one 

 foot, is a design for a group of small beds to border a straight short 

 walk on each side, and opposite each other. A low broad 

 vase for flowers occupies the centre; the beds 2, 2, to be 

 filled with brilliant bedding bulbs for a spring bloom, and 

 such plants as verbenas, phlox drummondii, and portulaccas for 

 the summer and autumn bloom. The larger beds 3 and 4 

 (which would be better if finished with a small circle at their 

 points), will have a good effect filled first with bedding-bulbs 

 like the former, and afterwards with a variety of geraniums 

 diminishing in size towards the point of the bed ; or roots of the 

 great Japan lily, Lillium auratum, may be planted in the widest 

 part of the beds to show their regal flowers above the masses of 

 the geraniums. If such a variety of green-house flowers is greater 

 than the planter wishes to procure, these larger beds, two on each 

 side of the walk, may be filled very showily with petunias in one, 

 -dwarf perennial poppies in another, dwarf salvias in another, and 

 coxcombs or pinks in another. The vase, if a broad one, may 

 have a plant of Japanese striped maize for its centre, two colleus 

 ^erschafelti, and two mountain-of-snow geraniums alternated 

 around it, and around the edge of the vase the vinca elegantissima, 

 the lobelia erinus paxtoni, the tropcBolium, or some half a dozen 

 other drooping plants of brilliant foliage and blossoms which a 

 florist may name. 



