84 
BllAMBI.ES and bay leaves. 
means to work out a new style of bedding altogether. 
He looks over his stock, and by a strong effort of imagi¬ 
nation pictures out a plan, and sees it planted in its pro¬ 
per colours. Here, however, “ is the rub,” and the man 
of experience must be the man of invention; for when 
his plans are all conceived, the colours marked, and the 
scheme completed, the thing has yet to be done in actual 
plants, and, strange to say, no gardener, however talented 
and rich in experience, can predict to a certainty how 
any scheme of bedding not before tried will answer. It 
must be done first, and judged on the ground; and 
hence the risking of a whole season, and perhaps thou¬ 
sands of plants, on an idea, is a bold adventure, and 
success proves a far-sighted sagacity. 
But consider the anxiety of the winter work where 
new patterns and styles are tried every year. Think of 
giving a man a bit of golden-leaved stonecrop, or a new 
variegated balm, or ground ivy, the gift being perhaps a 
mere scrap of an inch long, and what would you say if 
you were to see a hundred yards of it forming the most 
delicate edging to geometric beds next summer ? Yet 
this is just the sort of achievement in which an earnest 
gardener delights. Your scrap of something new or 
curious is made to root in heat; then the tender top 
nipped off and struck, and then the shoots, as fast as they 
appear, taken off and rooted again, till, in the course of a 
few months, your valued gift has been multiplied a thou¬ 
sand fold, and a simple sport of Nature, which an unob¬ 
servant eye would have passed unheeded, is, once secured 
in its entirety, converted into garden-stock, and the 
splendour of a grand show made perfect by it. 
