THE LONDON PARKS: THEIR DESIGN AND PLANTING, 159 



A lesser evil of the system is the en- 

 couraging of the false idea that the only 

 things for the adornment of a park are 

 what are grown in hot-houses for eight 

 months of the year, whereas nothing 

 for the permanent beauty or good of a 

 park can bedone in a hot-house. Italso 

 gives rise to a pot-and-kettle race of gar- 

 deners, useless in the open air, where 

 they are most wanted. Some may say 

 that the people enjoy such floral displays 

 of stiff Hyacinths in the spring, lasting 

 but a few days in our dirty atmosphere, 

 and patterns of flowers in the summer. 

 But give them a chance to see some- 

 thing better, as in the Regent's Park, 

 where a concession has lately been made 

 to natural and artistic ways in the shape 

 of a little Reed-fringed pool for Water 

 Lilies, and nothing in the park is more 

 admired. Why not continue it on a 

 larger scale ? The upper part of the Ser- 

 pentine could be treated in the same 

 natural way, but on a bolder scale. The 

 natural vegetation of the water-side 

 should be seen there — Willows, Dog- 

 woods, Meadow Sweets, Reeds, and 

 Water Lilies, instead of the poor ever- 

 greens now dotted about. Thatmostde- 

 plorable of stone gardens at the head of 

 the Serpentine should be laid out as a 

 little flower garden with simple square 

 beds; and if the sculptured "orna- 

 ments" there were broken up and buried 

 in the bottom of the walks it would be 

 no loss either to the gardening or to the 

 building art. 



The perma?ient plantingol the whole 

 park should be considered, and we 

 should see something better than the 

 broken-backed Elms, and the com- 



moner trees. The Elm, the most dan- 

 gerous and worst of trees to put in a 

 town garden or along roads and paths, 

 is far too much seen in the park, and 

 often surrounded by spiked rails. If we 

 planted good trees here we should have 

 their beauty in the winter as well as in 

 the summer — to artists and others a 

 better thing than even a summer effect 

 — instead of wasting all our efforts in 

 making a show for a few months in one 

 place only. 



The public parks do not afford a 

 tithe of the beauty and interest of which 

 they are capable, if we take into con- 

 sideration their vast extent, their variety 

 of soil and surface, and the large sums 

 spent annually for theirkeeping. Every- 

 where in them we see vast surfaces 

 neglected, or only planted with a few 

 common-place trees ; everywhere evi- 

 dence that no thought is given to endur- 

 ing and distinct and artistic planting ; 

 and everywhere monotony in regard to 

 materials used. A number of trees be- 

 come popular, and they are planted in 

 about the same proportion. Thus we 

 find about the same type of vegeta- 

 tion everywhere, and the capacities of 

 our parks as national gardens are un- 

 developed. 



A Suggestion. — The system likely 

 to give us the noblest series of public 

 gardens is to treat all the parks and 

 gardens of a great city as a whole, and 

 to establish, as far as possible, in each a 

 distinct type of the finer vegetation. We 

 might devote one city park chiefly to de- 

 ciduous trees; a suburban one like Rich- 

 mond to evergreen forest trees; another 

 to the almost countless flowering- 



