602 



LAYING OUT FLOWER-GARDENS. 



lobed yellow figures should be planted 

 with Calceolaria amplexicaule. The outside 

 marginal border, if exceeding 3 feet in 

 breadth, may be planted with any other 

 good light-yellow calceolaria, pegged 

 closely down ; but if narrower than that, 

 it may be sown with Lasthenia Californica, 

 or, as a marginal line, with Oxyura chry- 

 santhemoides, the white eye softening down 

 the colour towards the extremity of the 

 parterre ; the centre planted with rose- 

 coloured verbenas ; and the outer line of 

 all may be sown with mignonette, or 

 planted with pure white verbenas. The 

 small circles around the margin may be 

 furnished with a vase each, and sown 

 with any pure white plant, such as white 

 rocket candytuft ; or, if there are no vases, 

 the beds may be sown with the same. 

 White should occupy the triangular and 

 circular beds of the four corners, as also 

 the angular ones at the base of the lobed 

 yellow beds. Yellow, blue, and red, the 

 three primary colours, will make a good 

 marginal border, and the plants used may 

 be scarlet verbena, Nemophilla insignis, 

 and Lasthenia Californica, or plants of 

 like dwarf growth and distinctness of co- 

 lour. The yellow beds in the radiating 

 ones may be Eschscholtzia Californica, 

 and the blue beds next them, Nemophilla 

 insignis, or any of the medium-growing 

 blue lobelias. The purple beds around the 

 vase-like figure may be sown with purple 

 candytuft, or planted with any of the 

 abundant flowering purple verbenas. The 

 vase-like figure is divided into two parts 

 by a narrow border of grass — the inner 

 portion sown with white rocket candy- 

 tuft ; the outer planted with Salvia patens, 

 or sown with Brachycome iberidifolia. 

 There are many other flowers of the same 

 colours, and of similar habits, that may be 

 substituted for any or all of these ; but 

 with such a collection, and arranged as 

 in our plate, the eye will rest upon the 

 whole with satisfaction. 



If this garden be upon a large scale, it 

 will be most effective if cut out entirely 

 on grass ; but if of a small size, the bor- 

 ders had better be enclosed with dwarf 

 box-edgings, and the space gravelled be- 

 tween; and if of an intermediate size — 

 that is, when the gravel would too much 

 preponderate — let the borders be mar- 

 gined around with turf verges from 1 to 

 2 feet in breadth, and the remaining space 



be covered with gravel. In either of the 

 latter cases the white in the vase-like 

 figure should be separated from the blue 

 next to it by a margin of grass, and the 

 spaces between the very small yellow beds 

 should be of grass also, as, if the ground 

 be gravel and box-edging only, there 

 would be a deficiency of green in the 

 composition. It will be observed that 

 the most intense colours — namely, scar- 

 let and blue — are here kept towards the 

 centre of the piece ; while the more sub- 

 dued tints— rose, yellow, and lastly, white 

 — form the margin. 



There is as much difficulty, and per- 

 haps more, in planting a flower-garden so 

 that the effect shall be pleasing, as there 

 is in painting a landscape upon canvass ; 

 not that either the painter or the planter 

 may be deficient in taste, or ignorant of 

 the harmonious arrangement of the mate- 

 rials each has to work with, but the diffi- 

 culty is in producing a subject that shall 

 be alike pleasing to all. Indeed, this is a 

 point that no man need expect to arrive 

 at until the taste of those who view his 

 performance be exactly assimilated to his 

 own. If there is a rule that can be laid 

 down in regard to the proportions of 

 colour employed in a flower-garden, we 

 think it is that proportion that is pointed 

 out to us by Nature. And the nearer our 

 arrangements in the disposal of those pro- 

 portions are to hers, so far as regards a 

 garden in the natural or picturesque 

 style, the nearer will we be to perfection. 

 In a geometrical garden, so far as natural 

 arrangement of colour goes, the case is 

 different. The proportions of the colours 

 may be the same as in nature, but their 

 arrangement may be as formal and as 

 striking as the forms of the compartments 

 they occupy themselves are. It is, no 

 doubt, desirable to place the complement- 

 ary colours as near as can be together ; but, 

 in doing this, we have the habit of the plant, 

 its time of flowering, and its duration in 

 flower, to take along with us ; — for, to pro- 

 duce anything like a perfect whole, they 

 must flower at the same time, continue 

 in flower for the same period, and all be of 

 consistent habit. The complementary 

 colour of red is green ; of orange, blue ; 

 of yellow, violet ; consequently blue and 

 orange coloured flowers, yellow and violet 

 ones, may be placed together. When the 

 colours do not agree, the interposition of 



