182 
ON GROUPING ORNAMENTAL PLANTS. 
made in large domains, such beds, scattered effectively over the turf with which 
the spot may be covered, have an air of little less than enchantment, and can be 
aptly stocked with all kinds of the tribe termed American plants. Lawns in the 
vicinage of plant-houses, too, or fronting small residences, or even around the most 
stately mansions, may often be very delightfully decorated with plots of shrubs, 
which frequently look better than flower-beds, or groups in which trees, shrubs, 
and herbs are all associated. A Heath-garden, or an American garden, also, laid 
out in a very bold geometrical or irregular style, and traversed by grass or gravel- 
paths, the plants being arranged partly in single species and the rest more indis- 
criminately, is a highly pleasurable addition to an estate. There are, moreover, 
buildings of a floricultural or exclusively ornamental character ordinarily found in 
spacious gardens, in the front of which, something of the nature of a flower-garden 
is mostly requisite to connect them with the lawns beyond. Flower-gardens, 
particularly geometrical ones, are, we conceive, seldom appropriate to such spots, 
being too gay and artificial. And it seems to us that a few well-arranged clumps 
of shrubs would accomplish the harmonizing of so subordinate an edifice with the 
pleasure-grounds much more satisfactorily ; and their fitness will be rendered the 
more complete if they are placed on the turf, instead of being separated by gravel- 
walks* 
In the almost universal rejection of shrubs for such objects as we have t\\m 
suggested, it appears to have been forgotten that there are species which are 
nearly as dwarf as any herbaceous plant, and the kinds which we have in view 
grow as compactly, intermingle as readily, carpet the ground as thoroughly, 
and bloom as profusely, and many of them as durably, as the herbaceous hardy 
and exotic species with which beds are always supplied. They have, moreover, 
or at least most of them, the good quality of being evergreen, and thus of keeping 
the earth constantly and agreeably covered. It would be out of place now to 
particularize them, and we shall shortly devote a few pages to their enumeration 
and treatment. 
Recurring to the disposition of shrubs in frequent groups, made up of separate 
genera, we affirm, as of trees, that no arrangement, founded on botanical affinity, 
can be otherwise than accidentally beautiful, and probabilities are strongly against 
even that. Chance and fortuity ought to be no part of a landscape gardener's 
dependence ; and the admission of a principle in which all must rest on these, 
should be universally denounced. We admit that with reference to American 
plants, excellent masses may be obtained by properly arranging the species of each 
genus in detached groups. Still, there are exceptions to this, and cases in which 
a mixture of different genera would be more suitable ; while the rule we seek to 
establish is not in the least degree weakened by these merely casual departures 
from it. 
In regard to shrubs that constitute the boundary of a plantation, uniting it 
with the flower-borders, or making it slope towards the walk, the existing 
