184 
Rustic Adornments. 
opportunity for an endless variety of arrangement. Do not let us be too 
ambitious to include a vast number of plants in the collection. If it be a sin 
to condemn our gardens to the poverty of the “ bedding out ” system, it is 
equally an offence to overload them with a motley crowd of ill-assorted plants. 
The mere absence of formality will not make amends for a graceless super¬ 
fluity. When a personal acquaintance is desired with more varieties of 
flowers than the garden will well hold at one time, attention may be given 
every year to some fresh family or group, and this may be the chief feature of 
that season. In this way we get fresh gratification, and perhaps quite as much 
in the planning as in the realization. Those who would have our suburban 
gardens things of greater beauty than they now are must never cease to 
demand for them needful thought and attention in the late autumn and winter. 
That is the time when the arrangements for the next year must be settled and 
in a measure carried out. Fie upon the man who limits his gardening to the 
spring and summer. He is only doing things by halves, and deserves no 
more than the small amount of success he is likely to obtain. But to the 
man who loves his garden, every month will bring opportunities for pleasant 
labour, flowers will smile upon him during three of the seasons, and there will 
be a harvesting of delight all the year round. 
The foregoing is the style that we most heartily recommend to be adopted 
where a really charming garden is desired. But still, pretty as it is, it may not 
suit everyone’s taste, and therefore we supply another style, of a more 
utilitarian character, one that will afford space for lawn tennis and for growing 
fruit and vegetables. The plan here given is intended for a garden of an acre, 
and is in the shape of a rectangle or right angled parallelogram, the longest 
sides being from west to east. The natural surface of the ground which is 
flat towards the east gradually rises to the west. Fig. i is the house, having a 
conservatory on the south side at 2, and on the north side a house yard at 3, 
and a back drive for carts, &c., with space sufficient for them to turn round 
at 4. At 5 is the kitchen or vegetable garden, in close proximity to the back 
part of the house, and divided off from the rest of the garden by a low 
ornamental wall five feet high, and having tool and potting sheds at 6 and 7. 
The lawn east of the terrace bank 8 is quite flat, and at 9 is a rose garden, the 
beds of the figure being cut out on grass, and the whole design encircled by a 
walk six feet wide, and hidden from view of the house by clumps of shrubs, 
as it is as uninteresting and gloomy in winter as it is brilliant and bright in 
summer. Some degree of irregularity is attempted in the treatment of the 
