180 
ON GROUPING ORNAMENTAL PLANTS. 
Our last paper on this subject was confined entirely to trees, and the different 
modes of planting them together. We have here, then, to take up the question 
in a more enlarged point of view, and consider it in reference to all other kinds of 
plants. 
Before we altogether pass from trees, however, we must just glance at the 
collections termed Arboretums, which these, in conjunction with all sorts of woody- 
plants, help to compose. Looking at the plantation of trees as an object intended 
to produce ornamental effect, the general grouping and yet isolation of them, as 
practised in Arboretums, lies open to many objections. The most prominent of 
them have previously been exhibited in this Magazine, and we shall only revert 
to those intimately connected with our present topic. 
The aggregation of several species or varieties of the same genus, or even of 
a number of specimens of one species, into masses of greater or less dimensions, is, 
as we have shown in our former essay, by no means to be found fault with in 
some circumstances, and under certain limits. Such a practice is, in fact, exceed- 
ingly judicious when rightly effectuated. Groups of Pines, Firs, Oaks, Elms, or 
other evergreen or deciduous trees, may, both on a large and a small scale, be highly 
interesting. And a Pinetum, containing all the kinds of Coniferous plants, is 
perhaps one of the most attractive features of which modern pleasure- gardens can 
boast. But in these cases, there is either a peculiar purpose to be answered, or a 
particular effect to be realized. Extensive masses of one species or genus of plants 
give the grandeur of uniformity and vastness, while lesser groups of the same 
attain a symmetry which a more varied assemblage would fail to reach, and which 
is almost indispensable in some localities. A Pinetum, again, combines in itself an 
essential variety yet harmony of appearance, such as no other tribe of trees could 
possibly occasion, and each of the objects being evergreen, and most symmetrically 
beautiful, is individually pleasing. 
Besides, it must be remarked, that in the instances we have referred to, it is 
from the detachment and isolation of such groups that their interest arises, and not 
from the continuance of them, or their connection with similar ones. They stand 
out singly amidst other and far different forms, and thus, though simple and mono- 
tonous in themselves, assist, by their contrast to more diversified plantations, in 
giving greater variety as well as beauty to a scene. Were they perpetuated in 
regular succession, and an indefinite series of the like assemblages presented to the 
eye, their effect would be most disagreeable. And we therefore deduce what we 
conceive to be an important truth, that masses of one sort or tribe of plants, though 
fine and noble in themselves, are very far from being ornamental when they occur 
