April 18.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
other view of the subject than that it is a most difficult 
one—even if I could not attest the fact from experience. 
Besides, I know several flower-gardens of note that no 
one can plant in such a manner as to produce a good 
whole, owing to the disposition of the beds with refer¬ 
ence to the principal walks, and, also, for the want of 
some determined plan as to the different sizes of the 
beds themselves. It is thought by architects and land¬ 
scape gardeners an easy matter to form a plan of a com¬ 
bination of flower-beds to suit a given locality; and one 
would think that a good draughtsman, with an artist’s 
eye, could find little difficulty in laying down such a 
plan; and he might believe the same thing, and make 
his plan accordingly; yet the chances are, that when 
his beds are planted in the most judicious manner, or 
in the best possible order, the colours and sizes of the 
plants will admit of, the whole composition may not 
come up to the rank of a third-rate attempt. The truth 
is, unless one has such a thorough knowledge of all the 
plants that are suitable to form a good composition 
when combined together in various ways, as that he can 
tell you in the dead of winter their real colours, the tint 
of their leaves, their heights in rich and in poor soil, 
the time they usually come into and go out of bloom in 
a wet and in a dry season, no matter how proficient 
he may be in the art of drawing plans, he is not in a 
condition to lay down ten beds together without risking 
the danger of palpable mistakes. But I have said 
enough to warrant me in excusing myself from advising 
how to plant flower-beds which I never saw; and now 
we shall plant a bed with Verbena venosa, having deep 
purple flowers in upright spikes, and with dark green 
leaves. The plants, or rather the underground runners, 
we shall place at about a foot apart every way, and next 
May all the spaces between the verbena plants will be 
planted with a bright scarlet flowering plant; and, as a 
matter of course, these scarlet flowers will neutralise the 
effect of the purple ones; and so undoubtedly would be 
the case, provided the leaves of the scarlet flowering 
plant were of nearly the same tint as those of the ver¬ 
bena; but the leaves of my second plant are more than 
one-half pure white: it is the Old Scarlet 1 arieijated 
Geranium; and the effect of these two plants thus 
managed I shall describe in the words of a gentleman 
whom I found one day admiring it a few years back: 
“ By the bve, I have just written to her Grace the 
Duchess of'-to say that you have a flower-bed here 
which looks exactly like shot silk; I never saw such a 
charming bed!” Now, I hope all the old shrubbery bor¬ 
ders in the country will be hunted out at once for this 
Verbena venosa, for it has been turned out of the flower¬ 
beds years since; and let all the nurserymen in the 
country be laid siege to for variegated scarlet geraniums, 
to make “shot silk” beds with this next summer; for 
if we do not strike while the iron is hot, the halt of us 
may forget the thing altogether before another season 
comes round. This bed should not be placed near the 
windows, nor where you come close to it before it can 
be observed; not but that it will bear close inspection, 
for the nearer you come to it the richer it looks; but 
when friends come to see the garden, and observe it at 
a distance, it will puzzle them to make out what plants 
you have got in it. “ What, in the name of goodness, 
have you got yonder ? ” is a common expression with 
strangers on viewing this bed at a distance; and away 
they run across the grass, wet or no wet; and the next 
observation you hear is, “ Dear me, who would have 
thought that such common plants should produce tlii 
ever, as I have 
shewn them for the 
sake of simplicity; 
none of such beds 
need necessarily be 
a circle. In nine 
cases out of ten you 
feet of most of the 
0 ‘ 
in 
the 
33 
see the centre bed 
in these groups 
planted with scarlet 
geraniums or scar¬ 
let verbenas, and 
their glaring bril¬ 
liancy kills the ef- 
other beds, unless, 
is 
striking effect! ” This bed, or one on the same principle— 
that is, having a rich display but not one decided colour— 
is by far the most suitable for a bed forming a common 
centre to a set of beds, as No. 1 in the annexed group ; 
a very general way of forming clusters of beds, or spall 
flower-gardens; not in circles or of the same size 
how- 
colours 
indeed, the other distinct colours in bedding plants, as 
blue, purple, yellow, and pink, are excluded, and white, 
light lilac, and gray, be used instead round the scarlet; 
but that could only be done in a very large garden, to 
exemplify one distinct kind of group, where many other 
ways of arranging flower-beds were adopted. In small 
gardens I like to see all the best and gayest colours 
brought together, and therefore the effect of the whole 
should not be lessened or even marred by placing the 
most glaring colour in the middle. I have been thus 
led to break in on tbeplan I proposed, of going on with 
the distinct colours before I said anything of mixed and 
shaded beds, by a correspondent {II. IE.), who is an¬ 
swered at page 14. He sent a plan of his garden, which 
shewed the beds arranged from a central one; and lie 
proposed to follow the common herd, and plant his 
master bed with scarlet geraniums. I shall, therefore, 
keep to these mixed beds a little longer. 
Purple. —For the want of a real good purple among 
the verbenas I have tried many of them mixed, to see 
if I could make a better purple out of two or three 
shades of them, like the way of improving the scarlet 
ones, but I cannot boast much of these attempts. My 
standard plant for a real good purple is the lighter variety 
of the two purple Senecios, or American Groundsel. -The 
very dark purple Senecio can only be matched by the 
dark purple verbenas; and with the exception of a few 
purple Petunias, I know so few plants that will match in 
colour with the light variety of Senecio, that I shall 
make a present of this volume of The Cottage Gar¬ 
dener to any one who will point out to me two leading 
plants exactly of the same purple, not to exceed twenty 
inches in height, nor be much lower than ten inches, 
and to flower from the middle or end of June to the end 
of September; Petunias to be excepted. Verbena Char- 
woodii is one of the best purple tedders, after Emma 
and Heloise; but there is a shado of red in it which is 
against it for a good purple. I have tried many of the 
dark crimson verbenas with it in equal proportions, but 
still I did not obtain a good purple bed; verbenas 
Louis Phillip and Barlcerii were the only two which 
seemed to. answer best with Gharwoodii. It is not 
possible to make out how any verbenas would mix in a 
bed by putting cut flowers of them together for trial; 
they must be seen growing together to judge of the effect 
properly, as the habit and strength of verbenas are so 
different from each other. 
One more mixed bed and I have done with them to-day. 
Of all the neutral plants to be used in beds where a 
striking colour would not answer, the Heliotrope, or 
“ Cherry-pie," is the best, for many reasons. Every one 
likes the perfume of it. It is one of the easiest plants to 
keep in winter; and comes from cuttings in the spring 
as easily as a verbena or fuchsia; and it lasts in flower 
till the frost cuts it; and it does not require rich soil. 
The only fault of it is, that it produces too many leaves, 
so that the bed looks too green. I bad overcome this 
difficulty last season for the first time, and the plan was 
much praised. I tried four kinds of those verbenas 
whose flowers are of the same grayish colour as those of 
the heliotrope, and one called Ducliesse d'Aumaule is the 
best of them. No one who plants a bed of Heliotrope 
should omit planting an equal number of plants of this 
verbena along with it. The verbena flowers will stand 
as four to one of the heliotrope, and a stranger could 
hardly detect the mixture at a yard’s distance, and if he 
