274 
MODERN FLOWER-GARDENING. 
petunias, and verbenas, have expelled holly- 
hocks, china asters, stocks, annuals, and 
' herbaceous plants ;' the fashionable world 
prefers gaudy tints to varied forms ; mere 
colour has driven away beauty ; and who 
shall venture to doubt whether the fashionable 
world is right, or that the change in taste is 
permanent ? Nevertheless, the lookers-on, 
who speculate upon the vagaries of the 
changeable crowd, sometimes inquire whether 
a red cloak is really so beautiful as an em- 
broidered shawl ; or a floor of coloured drug- 
get in all respects as fit an ornament of a 
drawing-room as a carpet of a rich and varied 
pattern. To us they say, ' How happens it 
that those who so much delight in rich bro- 
cades, gay tartans, and many-coloured muslins, 
are now content in their gardens with a few 
staring ill-blended colours ; variety being the 
object in one, and bald uniformity in the 
other ?' Our reply may be unexpected, but 
its justice will be acknowledged. ' All that 
change arose out of bad gardening. A race 
of unskilful gardeners rendered hideous what 
should have been beautiful, and drove their 
employers to adopt the present style, which 
their successors have seldom thought of aban- 
doning.'' That a flower-garden containing a 
gay mixture of all manner of flowers, of all 
forms, colours, sizes, and appearances, will be 
more permanently interesting than one deco- 
rated, here with a yard of red verbenas, there 
succeeded by a yard of white verbenas, inter- 
rupted by a couple of yards of scarlet pelar- 
goniums, followed by a patch of white 
petunias, will probably not be denied. But 
such plants are preferred in practice because 
nothing can be easier than to maintain the 
gaudy appearance which they produce, while 
to preserve the former in a state of beauty 
demands great skill, watchfulness, and fore- 
thought, and is far more expensive. A ver- 
bena or a pelargonium once planted, the work 
for the summer is at an end ; the branches of 
such plants. fall over the ground as they ad- 
vance, a few pegs keep them in their places, 
and there's an end — till the frost comes and 
converts the garden into a wilderness." 
We, however, fail to see that the grouping 
system involves " bald uniformity." In a 
geometrical garden, indeed, where all is regu- 
larity, some kind of uniformity should prevail; 
but there is no reason why, so to speak, the 
" red cloak " should take precedence of the 
"embroidered shawl" as a pattern of taste. 
To be effective, the pattern of the shawl must 
be distinct and striking ; the colours, too, must 
not be mixed up too closely in too small pro- 
portions, or they blend with and destroy the 
tints of each other. So it is in flower-gar- 
dening. The whole arrangement, not a de- 
tached fragment, represents the embroidered 
shawl, and if the parts are not too large, and 
the colours^ire well disposed and sufficiently 
numerous and diverse, a rich embroidered 
pattern is produced. It is obvious, however^ 
that the masses of colour ought not to be over 
large, or there will not, in that case, be secured 
the requisite variety within a moderate space. 
There is no reason why the principle of 
embroidery should not be carried to a much 
greater extent than it is, in planting flower- 
gardens. If the effect of well-disposed masses 
of colour be good, the effect of producing 
these masses by a judicious combination of 
colours is also good, so long as the affair is not 
frittered away by an overstrained attempt at 
the production of variety, — so long as the parts 
are definite and the colours distinguishable. 
Only be it remembered, that when this is 
attempted, the arrangement becomes com- 
pound, and the difficulty of a tasteful combi- 
nation is greatly increased as compared with 
the common, or, as it may be termed, simple 
mode of arranging colours in whole or uni- 
form masses. 
Such a compound arrangement of colours 
would open the way for the introduction of a 
far greater variety of subjects in choice flower- 
gardens than at present find a place there ; 
and in so far, at least, it would tend to an 
improvement of the present plan. The scope 
for the exercise of taste in the matter of 
arrangement would also be indefinitely ex- 
tended, and in consequence, flower-gardens 
as compared with each other would exhibit 
much greater variety than at present. 
There are of course many ways in which 
such a principle might be reduced to practice ; 
Ave shall mention one or two by way of illus- 
tration. The mode of planting the subjects 
in zones or belts was long ago recommended, 
but has not been extensively practised, al- 
though it may be made conducive to a very 
high effect. Suppose a circular bed of seven 
feet in diameter were to be planted, this 
would take three subjects, allowing the space 
of a foot next the margin for a circle of dwarf 
plants, a foot and a half within this for a 
circle of plants somewhat taller, and a space 
two feet in diameter in the centre for a third 
and taller subject, which should be, in most 
cases, a single plant. It is obvious that there 
would be more variety in such an arrange- 
ment, than if the entire bed had been filled 
with one kind of plant. Smaller beds might 
be filled in the same way with two kinds of 
plants ; and provided the different beds are 
filled in a way to harmonize with each other, 
the general effect would be rather improved 
than otherwise by the avoiding of larger 
masses entirely of one colour. By this mode 
of planting, however, a decided preponderance 
is necessarily given to the marginal colour, 
