THE AMATEUR’S FLOWER GARDEN. 
17 
speaking, tie design vanishes in summer, that is to say, when 
tlie oeds are full of flowers, the coloured earths that mark out, 
the design are so completely extinguished that, even with a 
key plan in one’s hand, it would be hard to see where the 
thistle begins and the shamrock leaves off, and where, amidst 
the confusion, the rose ought to be. The principal materials 
employed for the intersecting walks in these designs, are 
pounded Derbyshire spar (white), pounded brick (red), 
pounded slate (blue), pounded coal (black), sifted gravel grit 
(yellowish grey). 
In planting the parterre it is as easy to make mistakes as 
in designing it, and the most frequent errors are the employ¬ 
ment of primary colours in excessive quantity and strength, 
and the neglect of neutral tints to soften it, and of brilliant 
edgings to define it. The stereotyped repetition of scarlet 
geraniums and yellow calceolarias is in the last degree vulgar 
and tasteless, 
and the com- 
and blue are 
better adapted 
to delight sava¬ 
ges, than repre¬ 
sent the artistic 
status of a civi- 
lours marks a 
great advance 
in taste, and 
strange to say, 
the most perfect 
examples of par¬ 
terre colouring 
we have seen of 
late years, have 
been accomplished by leaves solely, in scenes from which 
flowers were utterly excluded. Leaf-colours, however, are 
of immense importance in connection with flowers, as any 
good example of parterre colouring will prove. They afford 
lized people. 
The increasing 
use of leaf co- 
mon dispositions 
of red, white, 
