Flowers and Gardens 



Scarlet Geranium, and then ask yourself 

 what that taste can be where this is not 

 only tolerated, but admired. We may 

 perhaps obtain a really beautiful leaf, like 

 that Geranium leaf with variously coloured 

 borders in which a coppery tint prevails ; 

 but all this is essentially an imitation of 

 withering, and wherever such plants come 

 in largely, their colour must produce the 

 effects of withering, making beds look as 

 if they were blighted. But this is only 

 one example of the thousand discords 

 which are coming into favour now. The 

 gardener here has entered a radically 

 erroneous path, and there will be little 

 but baseness in the results. How often 

 do we see the colours of a bed completely 

 frittered away amidst contrasts of leaves 

 which are spotted and streaked into every 

 sort of deformity ! That which is excep- 

 tional in Nature is made the rule, the 

 rule narrowed down into the exception. 

 How can breadth of effect, or anything 

 but the utmost frivolity, be possibly gained 

 by means of such barbarous plants as 

 these ? And some of the large tropical 

 Arums (Aracec^) of the hothouse, I know 

 not whether naturally or as the result of 

 art, are as harsh as anything I have 

 named, green grounds peppered thickly 

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