THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, September 22, 1857. 389 
The promenade hero now is more complete as a 
design than that at the Crystal Palace, which is one¬ 
sided—I mean the bottom line in the centre of the upper 
terrace, which is the best example of the promenade 
style at the Crystal Palace. At the latter place they 
adopted the pincushion style by planting a standard in 
the centre of all the circles, while at Kew they have the 
original line of upright-growing shrubs, not, however, in 
the circular flower-beds, but on the grass between the 
beds. The Crystal Palace plan is by far the best, 
because the plant in the centre of the bed, be it standard 
or bush-like, is cultivated to the utmost, while a plant 
on the grass, with a small bare space round it, must 
comparatively be left to chance. If the soil is not suit¬ 
able or “ natural to it,” as we say, no plant, or bush, or 
tree will grow a quarter so fast or so well, during the 
first fifteen or twenty years of its age, if it is grassed or 
turfed up to the stem, or with only a small circle round 
the stem, as with a standard Rose. Hence the reason, 
no doubt, why Sir Joseph Paxton planted the great 
Deodars at the Crystal Palace in the pincushion style; 
that is, in the centres of large dug beds. He wants to 
see them fully grown before he dies, while some most 
excellent gardeners would have them turfed over at 
once for the look of the thing, and leave their full-blown 
beauty to the third or fourth generation ; but the two 
ways are equally good on the principle of “ good taste,” 
because the meaning of good taste, when analysed by 
critical rules, is this—the taste of the speaker. 
Many of the new groups in the promenade at Kew 
have the centre oblong bed planted with standard 
Roses; but Roses do not do very well at Kew, the soil 
being too light for them. Unless a bed of standard Roses 
is well filled on the surface with gay Roses of the China 
or free Bourbons, as Oloire cle Rosamene, Mrs. Bosanquet , 
Fabvier , and the like, they seldom look well when 
placed up close to the more common style of flower-beds. 
If the row of shrubs on each side of this walk—the rows 
which run in the direction of the centre of the flower¬ 
beds—was done away with, and the standard Roses 
were put in the same lines, not on the grass as the 
shrubs are, but in the centres of all the circles , as at the 
Crystal Palace and in the Experimental Garden, ’and 
even as at the farthest-off end of the avenue of flowers 
here on the north front of the Palm house, where the 
pincushion style was adopted last spring to hurry on 
the newly-planted Rose climbers, the grand promenade 
garden at Kew would be the most complete of the 
land in England. But to render it perfect on principle 
there are four circles in the angles of two cross walks 
which would need to be altered to the only one shape 
for angle-beds in geometric gardening. These four 
unfortunate beds are filled with Hollyhocks—the worst 
plant we have for the centre beds of an elaborately 
planted promenade. If there is one question more de¬ 
cidedly settled than another in flower gardening it is 
that Hollyhocks and Humeas should not appear among 
flower-beds where their lower parts cannot he hid, and, 
as Hollyhocks are getting ill-fared at the bottom and 
seedy looking at the top by the beginning of September, 
they are unfit associates for “bedding plants.” They 
have hit upon the true way of “ having Hollyhocks 
look fine” at the Crystal Palace this season, groups of 
them forming the centres of large circular Dahlia beds. 
They vastly improve the shape of “squat” or lumpy 
beds, and they are spared, in their decline and nakedness, 
from the vulgar gaze. 
By the way, speaking of Humeas, the most graceful 
flowering plant on the face of the earth, a row of them 
on each side of this magnificent walk, just where Juni¬ 
pers, Thujas, and Taxads now form two of the old “ con¬ 
necting lines,” would be the ultimatum of profuse de¬ 
coration in the truest stylo of art, provided the centre 
of all the circles on the same lines was planted with some 
standard plant, but not very bulky in the head—an 
avenue, in fact, decorated in the highest style (the 
mixed) of promenade planting. The hit on the highest 
style of promenade planting at Kew from the very first 
was that their groups were always mixed, the one dif¬ 
fering from the other. They tried hard at this style at 
the Crystal Palace, but from some cause or other they 
gave it up, and this year all their circles are yellow, and 
all their oblongs scarlet—very rich certainly, but too 
much of a good thing to invite to an evening walk. I 
have every kind of plant in this vast assemblage booked, 
and I shall name them all very soon, which is a dif¬ 
ferent branch of the business of teaching the young idea 
how to shoot in this fashion. 
We now go to the conservatory terrace, and, if you 
recollect, there used to be a green patch of grass in the 
centre of each of the two divisions. What they were 
for I could never divine, but they destroyed the whole 
effect of the planting year by year; therefore, whatsoever 
you do, recollect not to leave a flat patch of green in 
the centre of a geometric garden. Mr. Smith, the 
curator, told me that day that it was understood these 
two central patches were intended to set up two grand 
flower vases on ! This would have been a greater error 
than the old method of placing a brilliant scarlet bed in 
the centre of a group, a method which was exploded in 
England at the time of the French revolution in 1848, 
and which is now well understood by all of us as lessen¬ 
ing the effect of the group to one-half of its size. A fine 
flower vase in the centre would still more effectually 
arrest the eye, and fix it on the centre figure; therefore 
anything to the size of a sundial ought to be avoided in 
such centres. The two patches of grass have been con¬ 
verted into two flower-beds, and of the best kind which 
we know of for a centre, the Flower of the Day Gera¬ 
nium, and with the proper proportion (three to one) of the 
Variegated Mint. The four outer corners of each figure 
or end are planted with Tom Thumbs. The yellow, and 
blue, and purple are in the right proportions, and in the 
proper places for a picture, and altogether the garden is 
most beautiful. The only fault when I called at the 
end of August was that the yellow ( Calceolaria integri- 
folia ) was too strong for the blues and purples; but 
Mr. Craig, the flower gardener, explained how he meant 
to avoid this another year. He has a most difficult 
figure to manage well in this very faulty design; but, 
having studied it year after year, there are very few gar¬ 
deners who could “ do ” it now more effectually than lie 
has done. 
Two-thirds of the upright Irish Yews, and the lumpy- 
headed Hollies in contrast with them on this terrace, 
must be swept away to get at the beauty of which the 
place and the present design are capable of affording. 
After that another faulty and prominent part of the 
design will become apparent, and should be altered, and 
no doubt will be; I mean a raised compartment on 
each side of the central walk which is now on grass, and 
intended for pedestals and flower vases, which would 
completely ruin the effect of what has been already very 
much improved thus. You walk down from a perfectly 
level terrace, on which the grand conservatory stands, 
by a flight of steps to a lower terrace, which ought also 
to be equally level from end Jo end, a third level being 
the surface of the lake immediately in front; but the 
view of landscape gardening destroys the union of levels 
—unity of expression, as Loudon would call it—and, 
instead of finding yourself on a level with the flower¬ 
beds, or rather, having a level view over them all, a 
raised platform of glass flanks you right and left. Place 
vases on these, and your eyes would need to be turned 
upside down in their sockets to discover the beauty 
beyond the pedestals; or, if the laws of perspective 
and optics do not bear out this assertion, all that I 
know of them has been in vain. But there are rules 
