X OVEMBEK. 
257 
modern horticulturist’s idea of planting a garden is in such fashion that for 
nine or ten months in the year it shall be a desert, without a flower or shrub of 
any interest. Your professed gardener has a limited catalogue of about a 
dozen plants, which he calls bedding-out plants, consisting of Verbenas, Cal¬ 
ceolarias, Tom Thumbs, Petunias, and a few others; on these he expends all 
your money and all his energies ; he has but one idea, and that is, to force a 
few coarsely contrasted plants, with scent, without variety, &c.” Here follows 
an attack against the glaring colours and form of the beds, ending with—“ We 
just perceive distinctions without difference, until we become weary of the 
continued monotony, and fatigued with an oppressive blaze of vulgar colours.” 
If the writer of this had taken the trouble to make a very little inquiry, he 
would have found that this bedding-out is the bugbear of all the gardeners of 
the present day, and not the idea of the gardener at all; it is the ruin of his 
hothouse fruit, and a continual draw upon labour. It keeps his vegetable depart¬ 
ment in a backward neglected state, and is frequently a source of upbraiding 
if his employer has seen a neighbour’s garden with more display, or with 
a colour not to be found in his own. In nine cases out of ten the new r 
plants are purchased by the employers, and not by the gardener. Were he 
to spend the money who has also the knowledge of how to keep them full 
for the nine months instead of empty, the flower gardens would often be in 
much better condition than they usually are. But what are we to think of our 
own periodicals which have lately taken up this cry about “ vulgar colours ? ” 
We look to them for advice in these matters. We have of late years been 
continually weeding out our bedding varieties to get a collection of good shad¬ 
ing colours, often through their criticism, and as they condemn they should 
also point out a proper substitute. This will not be found in green crops, for 
which there is a proper place in most English gardens, and I venture to 
think another generation of ladies must arise before a parterre filled with green 
leaves can be admired, however graceful their outline may be. We know, also, 
that the French gardeners are groping about for substitutes, and no wonder, 
for the people of Paris are tired of Cannas; they are everywhere, in place 
sometimes, and more frequently in very questionable positions. There are 
besides very few gardeners at the present day who have the option of making 
any great change in the bedding ; their employers very frequently arranging all 
this the previous autumn, and he would be a bold person who filled his beds 
or borders with herbaceous plants instead of the so-called “vulgar colours,” 
and ribbon lines. What draws the immense numbers of people to Kew ? Not 
the botanical department; we know how miserably the botanical movement for 
large towns broke down a few years ago ; only those are now existing that com¬ 
bined the two and made some show to attract the public. Whenever these old 
herbaceous borders are renewed they must be kept in a very different way to 
what they were, to give either pleasure or satisfaction to the present high 
notions of our amateur gardeners. A Lovek or Fair Play. 
TPIIS SEASON’S FINE-FOLIAGED FLOWER-GARDEN 
PLANTS. 
The varieties of the Castor Oil plant have been very satisfactory, some of 
the tall-growing varieties have grown almost 10 feet high; but I consider the 
dwarf varieties most handsome and useful, unless for very large beds ; some of 
the leaves measuring 2 feet across, and flowering profusely, but, of course, the 
summer is not long enough to ripen seeds. 
Cannas have grown tolerably well, and flowered very freely the whole season. 
