CHAPTER XXL 
THE SUBTROPICAL GARDEN. 
The u subtropical garden,” as at present understood in this 
country, is an importation from Paris, of limited, and indeed 
almost questionable value. Considered in close accordance 
with its designation, it requires us to expose to the common 
atmosphere, and to all possible changes of weather, any and 
every kind of stove plant that, owing to its distinctive out¬ 
lines, or brilliant colours, may be considered suitable for pur¬ 
poses of outdoor embellishment. We may set apart a plot of 
ground for the purpose, and having crowded it with cannas, 
palms, tree-ferns, caladiums, begonias, and other elegant and 
valuable stove and greenhouse plants, pronounce the affair a 
subtropical garden. It may be a good or a bad example, as taste 
and judgment have or have not been employed in its production, 
and we may premise that, unless taste and judgment are 
employed, the subtropical garden is likely to prove the most 
ludicrous of all possible garden failures. In the first con¬ 
sideration of the subject, it will be well to adhere to the 
contracted signification of the term “ subtropical,” in order 
to arrive at something like a clear perception of its bearings 
on matters practical. We are required, say, to embellish a 
garden with plants many degrees more tender than our 
familiar geraniums, verbenas, and petunias, and we may 
reasonably expect to find the task increasingly troublesome 
and hazardous, in direct proportion to the tenderness of the 
subjects that it is proposed to employ. We may first reflect 
with advantage that this is a sub-arctic clime; the summer 
is seldom in any sense established before Midsummer Day; 
that for subtropical plants its duration extends to two months 
at the utmost; and that night frosts have actually occurred, 
and have been registered both on thermometers and the face 
of nature, in the usually sunny months of June, July, and 
