THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



827 



number selected equally from the different colours of such 

 plants as are known to flower from February to October, are 

 what ought to demand the exclusive attention of those who would 

 plant a flower garden of this sort. Rarity and variety should 

 not be condemned, but it is always better to have such con- 

 fined to the botanical flower garden, or in a border either 

 alphabetically or classically arranged ; here they will be more 

 immediately under the eye of the cultivator, and less liable to 

 be destroyed or lost. Indeed, in every garden where there is 

 any thing like a collection of plants, some sort of arrangement 

 should be adopted, both as a nursery and an index to point 

 out the exact species of which the collection consists, as well 

 as what species are lost. It is observed by an intelligent 

 writer upon this subject, that flower gardens have been on the 

 decline in this country for the last half century ; and the cause 

 assigned is, that the great influx of new plants, during that 

 period, has induced gardeners to be more solicitous about rare 

 and new plants than well-disposed colors and quantity. 



Little attention has been practically paid to the disposal of 

 flowers, so as to have the advantage of producing the best 

 possible effect. The authoress of the Florist's Manual, a little 

 work which ought to be in the possession of every young gar- 

 dener, presents some very just observations upon this subject. 

 ** The fashionable novice," she observes, who has stored her 

 borders from the catalogue of some celebrated name, with 

 variety of rare species ; who has procured innumerable rose- 

 trees, chiefly consisting of old and common sorts, brought into 

 notice by the new nomenclature ; who has set apart a portion 

 of her ground for American plants, and duly placed them in 

 bog-soil, with their names painted on large-headed pegs, be- 

 comes disappointed, when, instead of the brilliant glow of her 

 more humble neighbour's parterre , she finds her own distin- 

 guished only by paucity of color and fruitless expenditure. 

 Variety of species, bog-plants, and largely-lettered pegs, are 

 all good in their way, but ihey will not produce a gay flower 

 garden ; and the simple cause of the general fliilure, in this 

 particular, is the solicitude which at present prevails for rarity 

 and variety, in preference to well-blended quantity ; as, without 

 ihe freouent repetition of the same plant, it will be in vain to 



