May IS, 1886. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
383 
above-named work. A great stride has been made in forcing Straw¬ 
berries since then. Mr. Pavey spoke at great length on the different 
methods of storing Strawberry plants during the winter. The particular 
methods to be adopted should, he thought, be regulated by local circum¬ 
stances, and also on the sometimes practised mode of securing late Straw¬ 
berries by planting the plants out in prepared beds in frames. Other 
members joined the discussion, corroborating for the most part the 
remarks which fell from Mr. Fox and succeeding speakers. The meeting 
closed with a hearty and unanimous vote of thanks to Mr. Fox for his 
able paper. It is a great pity these social meetings are not more gene¬ 
rally adopted than they are. Such meetings are not only valuable from 
an instructive point of view, but are also the means of bringing men 
together, uniting their interests. Mr. S. Reece, a well-known local ex¬ 
hibitor of plants, will contribute the next paper on the Cultivation of 
Hardwooded Heaths.—T. W. S. 
FLOWER GARDENING. 
In recent years there has been a great decrease in the fancy for sensa¬ 
tional flower beds, borders, and parterres ; the stiS formality of the Dutch 
styles gave place long before I can remember to Italian and French styles, 
the chief recommendations of which appear to consist of intricacy in 
design, with beds and borders of brilliant flowers. The most that can be 
advanced in their favour is their brilliancy in bright weather from July to 
September, the display afforded for so brief a period being gratifying to 
townsmen. There is nothing in beds of such flowers arranged with a view 
to effect but what can be taken in at a glance, and yet we are constrained 
to admit that most garden visitors go expressly to see, not study, flowers, 
and unless there is something brilliant to attract, something intricate or 
elaborate in design to rivet attention, and something novel in arrangement 
to awaken interest, there is a lack of appreciation. 
For public gardens, promenades, and parks there is no gainsaying the 
suitability of the bedding-out system, or the geometrical style of laying 
out with plants that afford a display at the time when the parks are most 
frequented—namely, the summer season, and I make no question of the 
bedding system holding its own against any mixed style of planting, for 
whatever may be advanced against the bareness of the beds in winter that 
is of little moment, as such places are then altogether neglected. Beds 
of shrubs are at best extremely tame or uninviting to the town denizen. 
It is different with spring-flowering plants and bulbs. The spring and early 
summer display is very much appreciated, and effort in this direction is 
to be encouraged, as beds of spring flowers through the variety of their 
forms, their varied hues, and the succession in which they are produced, 
are interesting and instructive. Beds of Snowdrops, Winter Aconites, 
Scillas, Hepaticas, and Crocuses all admire. The Hellebores show to 
great advantage in such company ; Primulas, Violets, with Arabis, Doro- 
nicums, Wallflowers, Daffodils, Tulips, Pansies and Violas, Daisies, Silenes, 
and Forget-me-nots all assist in the display. In summer we have our 
conservatories outdoors and bright carpet beds rich in colour and 
harmony. In the sub-tropical garden we have Musas, Cannas, Eucalyp¬ 
tuses, with many others from all parts of the world. For public parks 
and gardens we want broad walks, open and breezy spaces gay with 
flowers, broad expanses of turf, trees that blend in the distance into 
woodland scenery, a lake, and ample space for recreation. 
It is with regard to private gardens, however, that I wish more par¬ 
ticularly to discuss the bedding-out system. I am old enough to remember 
the flower borders of over forty years ago, which are now referred to as the 
old-fashioned style of gardening. At the garden where I commenced my 
career there was a large mansion with north and south frontages—the 
south, the carriage or drive front, on which there were expanses of sloping 
lawn, a view over meadows, and a tidal river to the richly wooded country 
beyond. The lawn was flanked with noble trees, which acted as shelter 
from the west winds that came sweeping over a stretch of flat somewhat 
treeless land following the course of the river, whilst on the lawn itself 
were specimens of noble Cedars, Magnolias, and groups of shrubs both 
evergreen and deciduous. The centre was of course an open space, and 
immediately under the windows were the exotics, which gave a pleasing 
aspect from the windows. There were no formal shapes, and there were 
no flowers except those in semi-wildness among the shrubs or beneath 
the trees, as Primroses, Winter Aconites, Snowdrops, and Daffodils, with 
Periwinkles, &c. The north front was simply a broad expanse of lawn of 
ten acres, bounded on the west by plantations and shrubberies that with 
walks offered access, and at the same time shut off the usual adjuncts of 
mansions, as stables, &c., and on the confines of which were situated the 
dairy. Not a tree stood on this expanse of turf, a broad walk ran parallel 
with the mansion across it with a similar one from it to the entrance of 
the mansion on that side. It was in fact the foreground to the park 
scenery beyond with its deer and trees of Oak in noble proportions. The 
ground adjoining the west of the mansion was occupied by a Delt of trees 
that concealed the offices of the mansion, and on the side were the kitchen 
gardens and orchard, nearly half a mile distant, there were the then 
customary Pine stoves, vineries, Peach houses, Cucumber and Melon pits 
and frames, tan and stable dung being used for bottom heat, with hot air 
in flues for the top heat, there being two furnaces to each Pine stove, and 
when fully at work there were twenty-six fires to attend to of an evening, 
which gave me a perfect recollection of the good old times, as we now have 
more work done by one boiler than was then done by the twenty-six 
furnaces, and with greater certainty of result, as the flues were very 
liable to be overheated and emit sulphury vapour. 
Adjoining the drawing room to the east of the mansion was the con¬ 
servatory some 90 feet long and about 24 feet wide, with a curvilinear 
roof, the height being corresponding to the width. It was not all wood 
in mullions, and opaque from massive meaningless cornices, but it was 
light, the roof being of copper sashbar, and the astraga's were light in pro¬ 
portion ; and it were heated with hot-water pipes, having taken place of 
a building not very different from the mansion in respect of architecture 
and means of admitting light. I need not tell what this was like, as there 
are only too many such conseryatories now existing. Beyond this east¬ 
ward went a wood, through which the drive passed, and in the wood were 
walks, here and there stretches of turf or open spaces where bracken, 
wild Roses, with wild flowers, grew in profusion. In front of this wood 
to the south were the flower garden, and as the wood curved inwards, or to 
the south, it was sheltered from northern and eastern winds, whilst west 
winds were checked by the trees on the south front before alluded to. 
This enclosure was some thirteen acres in extent, although it seemed 
very much less, as it was profusely decorated with flowering trees, 
shrubs, and plants that caught the eye in every direction, being a rich 
mass of floral beauty in the foreground, heightening in interest and 
beauty as we examined it ; now a mass of China Roses with climbing 
varieties on arches, blended with Honeysuckle, the next being the brilliant 
scarlet Tom Thumb Pelargoniums with yellow Calceolarias. There 
were beds of Cape Pelargoniums and Fuchsias, of tall Lobelias, Verbenas, 
Heliotropes, and Petunias, masses of Musk, and Night-scented Stocks, 
there being few variegated Pelargoniums, the best yellow being Golden 
Chain. There was a rosery in the flower garden almost exclusively 
formed of summer Roses, with pillars and arches loaded in their season 
with clusters of fragrant flowers. A wide border, a mixed mass of 
plants—Hollyhocks at the back, its Dahlias, Larkspurs, in declining 
height to the front with its Pinks and Carnations, Ten-week Stocks, 
and Asters, with other annuals both half and full hardy, Sweet and 
Everlasting Peas, something ef almost everything that made a show and 
was u efil for filling the flower basket, grand masses of Anemones for 
early summer and Gladioli for summer and autumn. There were 
water plants, a lake-like stream running through the ground, having its 
Weeping Willows and Birch on the margin; rock garden, so far as 
meagreness of rock could make it, with its rootery made to serve in 
grotto-like form for Ferns, bowers enshrouded in Clematis, and other 
winding climbers, and in a secluded spot were cherished varieties from 
Dean Herbert’s garden at Spofforth, and which were mostly bulbs from 
the Cape of Good Hope or hybrids. 
There were always flowers to be had for at least nine months in the 
year, but I must briefly sketch something else, and which unfortunately 
we do not now find in one garden often. It was a piece of ground shut 
off by low-growing shrubs, which whilst sheltering from winds were open, 
sunny, and this was devoted to florist’s flowers—Roses, Pinks, Carnations, 
Picotees, Hollyhocks, Dahlias, Pansies, Polyanthuses, Auriculas, Ane¬ 
mones, Ranunculuses, and Tulips. Anyway, there were besides beds 
of these a house for Auriculas, pits, frames, and handlights for propaga¬ 
tion, with cool quarters for such as needed it. Here everything had name, 
and by such seedlings were judged, and it was astonishing how few could 
hold up their heads with the named varieties, the quantity of seedlings 
not exactly up to the mark coming in admirably in the mixed border, 
where they made a display that everybody admired. 
Whilst I was there we got into the custom of wintering Pelargoniums in 
vineries, making the old gardener use sundry expletives, yet the system 
grew, and he died before he had seen the waning of the mixed system. The 
massing system has been attributed to several, but there is not the least 
doubt that it originated with Loudon, as we find it much advocated in 
both arboricultural and floricultural articles by him in the “ Gardener’s 
Magazine,” and John Caie certainly put the system in practice so far 
back as 1835. Of all its advocates none brought it so much into pro¬ 
minence as Donald Beaton in the pages of the Cottage Gardener , it not 
being until 1850 that the system had obtained a hold of the gardening 
mind demanding particular note. It was not enough to relegate peren¬ 
nials to mixed borders, but these last must be cleared to make way for 
new fashions ; ribbons of flowers or foliage as varied in hues as those of 
the rainbow, even beds of choice plants must be relegated to the kitchen 
garden, and these were ousted by the tawdry Pelargoniums and gawky 
Calceolarias ; even Vine borders must be made contributary to the colour 
hunger. This was not enough, fresh beds must be cut on every available 
piece of lawn within view of the principal windows, until there were 
almost as much bed or border as lawn. It was a conglomeration of 
flowers of the brightest and most transitory character, a9 a spell of wet 
weather rendered the Pelargoniums petal less, and Calceolarias dropped 
their flowers, everything being forlorn except foliage plants that seemed 
to heighten in effect in murky weather. This, with the change of glare 
and neglect of tone, gave rise to the carpet bedding system, which speedily 
became popular. 
That the bedding system did not entirely obliterate every sentiment 
of the old-fashioned style of gardening, ample evidence was given in the 
remarks made from time to <ime by those attached thereto. Beds have 
now taken their proper place in gardens by being brought together into 
some position where they form an harmonious whole in distinct feature, 
which everyone must admit is a great gain on the disconnected and 
isolated bed placing on lawns without any regard to the production of a 
whole, the removal of any one of its parts would disarrange the whole. 
This the bedding system has done for us in a manner highly creditable to 
landscape art. It is vain to talk of the bedding system being exploded, 
it only seems to be finding its proper level and fit place in gardens, 
which is in the geometrical and symmetrical arrangements of beds with 
a view to effect at stated seasons, and for which materials are forthcoming 
