August 3. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
335 
wished to do, to get fashionable plants for their beds; j 
and yet, after all, taking the summer through, not obtain 
a tithe of the interest and real beauty which their 
gardens previously yielded, when such biennials as Can¬ 
terbury Bells, and Sweet Williams, and the dwarfer and 
more compact of the annuals were deemed worthy of 
sowing and growing. I never read and carefully digest 
the articles on herbaceous plants by Mr. Weaver, 
without wishing I was within elbow reach of him, and 
thinking of the times when flower-beds were kept gay 
all the spring and summer on the old mixed system. 
The distinguishing feature of Asbridge l’ark, a few years 
back, used to be that the mixed system was as well 
attended to as the grouping system, and the one reflected 
beauty and interest on the other. A great victory over 
fashion would be gained, and our humbler brethren 
would become more zealous enthusiasts after the beau¬ 
tiful, were they fully convinced that there is no certain 
connection between the costly, because novel or rare, and 
the beautiful. 
I would give every honour to the man who encouraged 
our enterprising nurserymen by paying them handsomely 
for novelties. I would go farther, and say, that no 
gentleman could expect his gardens to stand first-rate, 
unless, according to size, &c., there was a liberal outlay 
in this direction; but I scarcely know whether a feeling 
of pity or of ridicule should be felt for the man whose 
appreciation of the beautiful was bounded by the £. s. d. 
part of the affair; or who could enjoy nothing that was 
intrinsically lovely because such plants did not happen 
to b q fashionable —nay, were so vulgar, that the humblest 
that could spare a few pence and a frequent half-hour’s 
labour, could enjoy the rich treat as well as the greatest in 
the land. 1 often wish that such a man as Mr. Weaver 
would introduce some of our more beautiful wild plants, 
either for mixed or grouped planting. One of the finest 
sights I have seen this season was a bank of the 
Speedwell, the Veronica Gheemedrys ; and its blue tint 
was lovely. I recollect, when 1 had small beds, carefully 
cultivating the Lobelia lutea for a dwarf, close, yellow; 
but who ever saw it equal to the turned bird’s-foot 
Trefoil of the upland pasture—the Lotus corniculatus ; or 
its double variety, that keep in bloom so many months. 
So far from mere cost being an element of beauty, 1 
have not the least doubt but that if a collection of some of 
the showiost of our home plants were cultivated, either 
on the mixed of the grouped system, that many would 
call them beautiful, and begin to enquire from what 
far away land they came. 1 know not how others feel, 
but I often get the conceit taken out of me by looking 
at the flower-plots of cottagers in May and the first 
weeks in June. There is a gracefulness and beauty in 
the very want of all polished system, with which Polyan¬ 
thuses, Auriculas,Wallflowers, Heartsease, Pinks, Daisies, 
Sweet Williams, Blue Bells, Larkspurs, Fuchsias, &c , 
are packed together. No lordly yellow Calceolaria may 
be there ; but are the yellow Eschscholtzia, and the 
verticillated Lysimachia, which I see almost every day, 
without beauty ? Would the farmer, or trademan’s wife, 
be likely to gain clearer perceptions of the beautiful by 
discarding the above, along with her Tulips, and Hya¬ 
cinths, and Anemones, and Rauunclirees, and Go-be¬ 
tweens ; the crawling shrub, and herbaceous plant, as 
yellow Alyssum, evergreen Candytuft, the dwarf Wall¬ 
flower, Cheiranthus alp in us, and its more beautiful 
orange-coloured neighbour, Cheiranthus Marshallii ; that 
she might grow, and be able to cull, a nosegay from 
Geraniums, &c., merely in the beginning of July? On 
the principle that we love that the least that costs us 
less, there is, certainly, an interest in being able to 
look over a small group, and say, or think, how much 
it cost, and what would be its value in a pecuniary or 
commercial point of viow; but that can have no refer¬ 
ence to the uninitiated in these matters, and then- 
thorough enjoyment of the gratification of the sense of 
the beautiful. A beneficent Creator has scattered the 
beautiful, with no sparing hand, around us ; and so true 
is our instinctive appreciation of the lovely, that I have 
often seen gentle and simple hanging over an effect 
produced by flowers, at a first cost of a few farthings, 
with as great a zest as they hovered over a collection j 
of Orchids, which the wealthy alone could possess. 
Would we lessen such gratifications with insinuations 
about the .cheap and the vulgar, which, though it would 
enhance theircharms in the estimation of the benevolent, 
would at once stigmatize them in the opinion of the 
really fashionable ? 
The sometbing-like morbid desire to have only such 
aristocratic plants in our flower-beds in summer as want 
coddling and protecting during winter, is waning before 
the wish to have flower-beds gay at all times. I lately 
had a conversation with a nurseryman who, perhaps, 
more than any man has to do with the furnishing of 
metropolitan gardens and balconies. He told me that 
many of the plants on which we set such store in the 
country, for late summer and autumn display, were of no 
use to him; what he wanted were things that bloomed 
freely during tbe London season. Provided a fine floral 
effect was produced, he had scarcely ever had a grumble 
as to expense ; the chief cause of complaint, was plant¬ 
ing and charging for plants that would only be beginning 
to bloom when the family were leaving all behind them 
for the country. For a fine autumnal display, where the 
owners of gardens can only'visit them then, nothing 
could excel the present system of grouping with tender 
plants; but for early summer display, I feel inclined to 
fall back chiefly on the old-fashioned herbaceous plants, 
and a plentiful supply of the more compact annuals. 
The finest out door display, on the 4th of July, that I 
have noticed for a long time, I saw in front of an 
Academy at Riverhead, about two miles from Sevenoaks. 
The flower-masses were arranged on grass in front of the 
house; and in two borders by the side of the main 
walks. I only had a glance for a few minutes through 
the railing, but the sight will not soon be forgotten. 
Scarcely an aristocratic bedding-plant was present. The 
mixed system of planting and arranging had been 
adopted, and though, on the whole, a wonderful profu¬ 
sion of bloom existed, very striking at first sight, the 
very mingling and variety produced a sameness, one 
clump or border being first, “ another of the same,” as 
applied to its next neighbour. Could we summon 
courage to suggest an improvement, it would be that 
while the individual clumps were mixed as now, a 
separate character should be given to each clump: the 
colours predominating in one being held in abeyance ] 
in another. It would not be fair to criticise as yet any¬ 
thing connected with the plant department at the Syden¬ 
ham Palace; but the same idea struck us in noticing 
the flower-beds and baskets in the nave; the mixed 
style of planting instead of variety has produced same¬ 
ness. I was told that this Academy-garden was, during 
the season, a perfect gem of flowers. Had time allowed, 
I should have felt pleasure in thanking the owner for the 
treat, and soliciting the outlines of his system. Per¬ 
haps, a friend in the neighbourhood may make up for 
my defects iu this respect. 
The main points of management seemed to be— 
removing every trace of withered and exhausted flower- 
steins, and sowing or planting something else in their | 
immediate neighbourhood. Practice aud experience 
will, no doubt, be continually directed to the right 
plants and seeds, and the best time for sowing and 
plauting for producing desired results. The mixed 
system allows all this cutting down, removing, and 
planting, and sowing, to go on without ever making a 
long or unseemly break. There was not time to make 
the slightest memorandum; but, so far as I recollect, j 
