88 GARDENS OF ENGLAND 



that beauty merely for the sake of some newer, but 

 not necessarily better development. 



Some whole families of favourite plants want 

 deliverance from the thraldom of "dwarf and 

 compact." We want, for instance, bolder forms in 

 the families of stocks. We want the whole plant 

 more free of growth and more branched ; we 

 want them more beautiful. What wallflowers 

 are so fine as the great bushy ones in cottage 

 gardens on fairly stiff soil ? What garden wall- 

 flowers can compare with them ? 



The over-doubling of flowers is another matter 

 that is often fatal to beauty. Many a flower is the 

 better for a judicious degree of doubling, but when 

 it is carried too far it turns what should be a 

 handsome flower into a misshapen absurdity. This 

 has been done in the case of the zinnias. In this 

 fine thing moderate doubling is a gain on a well- 

 grown plant a couple of feet high. But there is a 

 monstrous form where many rows of petals show 

 one above the other. In this the flower is robbed 

 of all its natural beauty, and becomes an absurd 

 cone of quite indefensible ugliness, and it is all the 

 more deplorable an object when this monstrous 

 flower is grown on a dwarfed plant. The orthodox 

 hollyhock is also much too tightly doubled, so 



