1877.] 
PERMANENT BEDDING. 
249 
of these Dahlias equally gay, followed by the ordinary bedding-plants, red and 
yellow, blue and white. Here the handsome azure heads of the deadly Monkshood 
were made to relieve the monotony of the lines of Dahlias by their quaint shape 
and scarce, always welcome colour. Who does not admire the Clematis Jachmamii^ 
blue as the woodland squill ? I long to see it in character on a wire trellis, round 
a clump of flowers, where the harmony of the colours would be complete, the one 
being the compliment to the other, making green, or as the colours of the rain¬ 
bow, making white. The yellow variety of the common Feverfew (Pyrethruiii) is a 
hardy herbaceous plant, whose leaves stand in no need of flowers ; indeed its shabby 
flowers are only disgraced upon such handsome leaves, and must be picked off 
as soon as they appear. The common Chamomile, with double flowers, if well 
managed, is a good hardy carpet-plant, and gives handsome foliage, and still more 
handsome flowers ; it does admirably as a rock-plant, when planted in rich 
mud on a stone, where it will be stunted, but flower freely. When done in this 
way, it will excite inquiry as to what fine double white flower it is. The single- 
flowered Chamomile is of no use for the flower garden. The dwarf free-flowering 
Verbena vernosa is perfectly hardy, and should be brought in for bedding ; 
although its flowers are purple, and coloured rather heavily, it will act as a use¬ 
ful foil to gayer colours, yet it should never stand by itself, but always in com¬ 
pany with brighter flowers. The select varieties of the Marigold can be timed to 
come in for the months of August and September, and as the name implies, it is 
quite a vegetable gold, but it requires some pains to hit the season of its flowering, 
though when that is done the gold will glitter, and by different sowings the ^ 
plants will bloom for several months ; but they, too, though bright, should not 
stand alone. 
There are so many beautiful rock-plants that are greenest in winter and that 
flower early, whose neat trim character would be no disgrace to the flower- 
garden in summer, but whose cheerful looks in mid-winter would far surpass the 
dwarf shrubs that we now see occupying the front places in what was the flower 
garden when summer days were fine. The dwarf Phloxes make excellent beds 
early, and give quite a close mass of blooms ; and such, with many others, might 
be set up on stilts, such as small boulder-stones. I grew Heaths in this way on 
hillocks of stone and peat, after the fashion that the late Mr. McNab adopted for 
his splendid Cape Heaths in peat and sandstone. The Heaths, such as Erica 
herhacea^ are useful as early flowering plants, and they also come in at the fashion¬ 
able time of the year, in August; and when one sees in town a brace of grouse 
going to some friend as a present, with a sprig of heather {Calluna vulgaris) to 
garnish the dish, it looks so full of flower, and so fresh and clean, as if it belonged 
to a better region than its moor and mountain home. 
If I could only get one-half or even one-fourth of the flower garden to be 
rich in botanical details I should be content. The blaze of bedding-plants would 
lose nothing by the contrast with their rare neighbours, and I would still keep up 
the so-called border-flowers in their proper place. There is no help for it but to 
