THE BEDDING FASHION 267 



would have despised Geraniums." On the contrary, I 

 love Geraniums. There are no plants to come near 

 them for pot, or box, or stone basket, or for massing in 

 any sheltered place in hottest sunshine; and I love 

 their strangely - pleasant smell, and their beautiful 

 modern colourings of soft scarlet and salmon-scarlet 

 and salmon-pink, some of these grouping beautifully 

 together. I have a space in connection with some 

 formal stonework of steps, and tank, and paved walks, 

 close to the house, on purpose for the summer placing 

 of large pots of Geranium, with sometimes a few 

 Cannas and Lilies. For a quarter of the year it is 

 one of the best things in the garden, and delightful in 

 colour. Then no plant does so well or looks so suitable 

 in some earthen pots and boxes from Southern Italy 

 that I always think the best that were ever made, 

 their shape and well-designed ornament traditional 

 from the Middle Ages, and probably from an even 

 more remote antiquity. 



There are, of course, among bedding Geraniums 

 many of a bad, raw quality of colour, particularly 

 among cold, hard pinks, but there are so many to 

 choose from that these can easily be avoided. 



I remember some years ago, when the bedding 

 fashion was going out, reading some rather heated dis- 

 cussions in the gardening papers about methods of 

 planting out and arranging various tender but indis- 

 pensable plants. Some one who had been writing 

 about the errors of the bedding system wrote about 



