184 ON GROUPING ORNAMENTAL PLANTS. 
shrub-garden, the figures should not be very small nor very close, nor have many 
corners or points. A collection of beds disposed with more freedom ought to be 
formed by the same rules, and be divested of abrupt recesses, or sharp turns, 
approximating their contour as nearly as practicable to rounded and regular curves. 
The circle, the oval, and every irregular shape that at all resembles these, are 
beautifully suited to shrubs. When beds of them are thrown down upon the turf 
before a house or conservatory, or other building, to enliven and vary the scene, it 
requires the greatest care to avoid bringing them too forward, so as to interfere 
with the broad open glade that should always front such erections, and also to 
prevent them from taking the aspect of being ranged in anything like a straight 
line. To this end, no two should terminate at the same distance from the centre 
of the glade ; or, to speak more definitely, that part of every one which is nearest 
the middle of the lawn should not be at an equal distance from it with the same 
relative part of any other ; nor should there even be the semblance of such 
regularity. The proper mode, where at all possible, is to let each bed, as it recedes 
from the building, fall away likewise from the centre of the lawn ; abjuring, 
however, all uniformity of distance. The glade will thus gradually expand till it 
is lost in the more ample pleasure grounds. 
Of the grouping of plants in greenhouses, stoves, and other floricultural 
erections, we proceed next to treat. And we must speak, first, of the taller shrubs 
and low trees which are planted out in conservatories and large stoves. At the 
commencement of the present volume, we published a method of confining the 
roots of these, in order to restrain the stronger sorts from outgrowing and injuring 
the more tardy growing kinds. We have now to take another view of the same 
evil. 
It is quite customary to allow plants in conservatories to advance with their 
natural rapidity, — only pruning them now and then when they grow very 
straggling, — till the branches of many specimens intermingle with each other, 
and compose a dense thicket. Not to mention, at present, the mode of remedying 
this above alluded to, we shall deal with the fact itself. Some culturists seem to 
imagine, that if they can get a house so filled with a few plants in a presumedly 
natural condition, they have gained a very desirable object. Now, without referring 
to the destruction of the smaller, weaker, and more valuable specimens which such 
extravagant luxuriance will necessarily induce, we contend that wildness and 
disorder are not merely incompatible with good culture, but palpably incongruous 
and out of place in a greenhouse. To see large bushes, with tall bare stems, and 
all the branches and flowers in the upper part of the house, is, to our taste, highly 
annoying ; for, in an artificial structure, we do not look for plants in a natural state. 
The expectation is grossly absurd. Were there room for realizing such a thing, 
— which there evidently cannot be, — the more rambling growth of an exotic 
under in-door treatment will entirely remove it from its natural character. 
What we deem, therefore, the grand point to be aimed at with conservatory 
