40 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER 
[ July 14, 1881. 
very great extent. The trimness of that period has been modified 
by the introduction of p’ants of graceful habit or beautiful foliage, 
selected from the subtropical plants which were fashionable for a 
short space. Carpet bedding in its worst aspects is being got rid of, 
and the gardener has begun to see that cutting-up a small rect¬ 
angular or circular piece of ground into a lot of ingenious lines, 
and planting the whole with a combination of various colours, has 
not the slightest approach to true beauty. As with beds filled with 
flowers so with those filled with carpeting plants, simplicity in ar¬ 
rangement and colouring gives the greatest amount of pleasure. 
Another point in all flower beds, which perhaps is not so common 
now as we hope to see it in the future, is making them as much 
as possible a part of the lawn on which they stand. Every flower 
bed should rise from the grass by which it is surrounded without 
any portion of bare soil intervening between the flowers and the 
grass ; the flowers, in a word, ought to rise out of the grass. 
In autumn we cannot dispense with strong colours, but it is not a 
necessity that we should make them glaring in their intensity by 
placing strong colours in proximity. By using neutral shades and 
harmonising the strong colours we are obliged to use, the most 
fastidious taste need not be offended. And there is, again, in the 
matter employing a great number of neutral-tinted foliage plants, 
such as dwarf Sedums, Sempervivums, and various plants of a green 
shade to the exclusion of colours of a rich shade, an insipidity that 
There is another form of flower gardening which has advanced a 
slight degree during the last few years, a form which may be desig¬ 
nated shrubbery gardening, and which is a mixture of flowers amongst 
shrubs. As a feature in pleasure grounds I am hopeful of seeing the 
whole arrangement of shrubberies changed. Not only in small 
enclosures of a few acres, but on the largest estates, where hundreds 
of acres are enclosed, the shrubs are almost, without exception, 
fighting amongst themselves the battle of the “survival of the 
fittest,” which means, as a matter of course, the strongest-growing 
Laurels. I would allow every shrub to stand by itself quite clear of 
its neighbours, and with a carpeting of grass under and around it. 
It would take a little more space to form blocks to views and screens 
on this system ; but the improvement would in all respects be so 
great as to be worth much more space being devoted to Conifers and 
evergreens. 
Then we have “ gardening on the grass,” a style which has come 
down to us from before the time of the memory of the oldest inhabi¬ 
tant, and which Mr. Wm. Thomson pointed out the other week as 
being quite common throughout Scotland. This is a form of garden¬ 
ing which, from my own experience, is suitable only for spring and 
early flowering bulbous plants and flowers which, like Primroses, are 
not harmed by having their foliage removed by the scythe in summer. 
It is an adjunct to the garden, but does not and cannot supersede the 
cultivation of flowers in beds and borders • but even in this style of 
gardening it is curious how the spirit of 
“ bedding-out ” is still to be found. Just 
conceive the want of taste, and the 
knowledge of the fitness of things, dis¬ 
played by that gentleman who has a 
St. George’s Cross and the initials of 
his name (in enormous capitals no doubt) 
worked out on grass in a field before 
his windows with nodding Daffodils ! 
Talk of “ depravity ” amongst gar¬ 
deners ! Surely they do not indulge in 
such vagaries as this ! 
Perhaps the best feature in the aspect 
of the flower gardening of to-day—from 
the gardener’s point of view, of course— 
is this, that there is no necessity to fol¬ 
low every shifting current of change. 
In the days when Pelargoniums, Cal¬ 
ceolarias, and Verbenas reigned supreme 
and unassailed, a gardener was ashamed 
of himself if he was without the trio. 
He can now follow the bent of his own 
mind so long as he carries the approval 
of his employer with him, and go in 
for Lilies and Daffodils and “ aesthetics ” 
generally. He may even grow sinele 
instead of double Daisies ; he may also 
continue in his “ depravity ” and culti¬ 
vate the flowers of the paint pot, and 
still find admirers of all or every sys¬ 
tem ; but above everything let him not 
imitate the person who had a certain 
long-eared animal to dispose of at a 
neighbouring market, and who in trying 
to please everybody by following that 
many-minded individual’s advice, was 
so unfortunate as to lose his “ neddy ” 
through his too obliging behaviour, and 
to be called a fool for his pains. 
will hinder this style of planting from gaining ground. Besides, any 
system of flower gardening which places flowering plants in a position 
subordinate to those remarkable for the beauty bf their foliage alone, 
is never likely to gain general and lasting approval. 
Turning now to hardy plants, it is only fair to notice here, that 
through all the fever of excitement produced when that feature of 
gardening called “bedding-out” was at its height, there were still 
many gardens throughout the country which maintained in their 
integrity the old herbaceous borders. True, there might not be one 
plant in every 10 yards worth keeping, but this fact nevertheless 
remains, that through all the bedding-out period these borders have 
been kept intact, living museums as it were of the gardening of the 
ancients. Some, again, were improved more or less by the addition 
of the best of the florist flowers as they were produced. One such 
garden is within my recollection, where along with many good hardy 
flowers were added collections of Phloxes,'Pentstemons, Hollyhocks 
and Dahlias, also Stocks, Asters, Heliotropes, clumps of Mignonette, 
Roses, sweet-scented Geraniums, and Fuchsias, backed by lines of 
Sweet Peas. The great majority of hardy perennials must sink to 
their own level in the course of time, only the cream being allowed 
in gardens, while the important forms of the florist will be more and 
more appreciated and cultivated. 
(ENOTHEEA LAMARCKIANA, 
I send you a box of flowers from a 
noble plant that grows in my pleasure 
ground. The growth is somewhat spreading yet upright, and, 
during the evening especially, it brightens the grounds more 
than any other plant I possess. On inquiring of a gardener for 
the name of the plant his reply was, “ Oh, it’s a common thing, 
and grows anyhow in cottage gardens ; it’s the old Evening 
Primrose ! ” Respectfully doubting his authority I send flowers 
for your inspection. As to its growing “anyhow,'’ I esteem 
that a virtue for the purpose for which my plants are grown— 
i.e., rendering the shrubbery borders cheerful in the cool of the 
day. My plants were raised from seed that was sown in the 
open ground with Sweet-Williams, the seedlings being in due 
time transplanted and finally removed to their present position. 
Some of the flowers are 4 inches in diameter.—E. Maesden, 
[It is not often we receive such a box of flowers—a whole armful, 
but not one of them expanded. So far as we can judge the above 
is the name of this (Enothera. Its large yellow flowers are very 
conspicuous in the “cool of the day.” The “ old ” Evening Prim¬ 
rose is (E. biennis. As we happen to possess an engraving in 
miniature of CE. Lamarckiana we publish it, as it well shows the 
