2 
NATURE NOTES. 
direction of an intelligent administration of this important public 
work. To duke and democrat the subject is apparently in- 
different ; though it is certain that neither would allow for a 
moment in their own gardens, whether large or small, a state of 
things which they contentedly tolerate in the gardens belonging 
to the public, of which they are for the time being trustees. 
The Gardens during last year have been fully as unsatis- 
factor}' as they were when we last called attention to them. 
The shrubs are crowded, badly grown, and uninteresting ; the 
beds have been ill-kept, and the plants in them often unsuit- 
able, e.g., the Indian pinks, and the portulacas which, brilliant 
enough in bright sunshine, are at all other times dull and 
colourless. But it is in the borders which encircle the grounds 
that incapacity is most manifest. Weedy annuals, and others 
effective only in mass, have been dotted about as “ single spies.” 
not “ in battalions ; ” and at a period when “ herbaceous ” 
gardening has almost become a craze, we find no recognition 
of its value — hardly, indeed, any indication of its existence. 
To particularize somewhat : the various handsome smaller 
sunflowers, with which private gardens have been aglow from 
summer to late autumn, have been represented only by the 
coarse and ugly double form of one of them — the worst of it? 
race. The tall white “ marguerites,” as the shrubby pyre- 
thrums are called, have been almost entirely absent ; the hardy 
lilies have been ill represented ; of the beautiful Japanese 
anemones, pink and white (more especially the latter), which, 
once planted, increase with almost weed-like rapidity, and are 
invaluable in spaces such as the Embankment Gardens offer, we 
could not find a single example. Chrysanthemums again, which 
carry us on with varied colour late into November, are almost 
unknown ; the few there are being of the commonest and poorest 
kinds. It would be easy to multiply examples, but these will 
suffice to show the need that exists for reform. Even so simple 
a matter as the renewing, when necessary, of the ivy which sur- 
rounds the borders is not attended to ; there was a large blank 
patch in the end border by the National Liberal Club, which 
was left unfilled for months. 
If it be urged tliat the question is one of expense, that objec- 
tion can readily be answered. It is not a matter of money, but 
of intelligence. All the plants we have named are exceedingly 
cheap ; the money spent in digging holes in the lawns and sticking 
in wretched little euonymuses, of which there are already far 
too many, would suffice to stock the gardens throughout. This 
preposterous piece of folly, by the way, has lately been carried out 
also in Kennington Park — where there is some excellent bedding 
to be seen near the gates facing Kennington Road — with the 
result that the once restful sweeps of grass now present the 
appearance of a badly planted nursery ground. 
We have something to say on the kindred subject of London 
trees, but this must be deferred for the present. The Selbornian 
