THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, September 27, 1859. 
windows of the principal rooms, the bank 3 acts as a background 
to the dazzling colours, and from the windows, especially, you 
might imagine you were looking down on a sunk parterre. 
Whether I am right or wrong will depend on whether our 
readers will agree with me in opinion, that, to give dignity to a 
mansion, terrace-walks in its vicinity should always be below 
rather than above the ground line of the building. 
The beautiful appearance presented by the simple groups on 2, 
between the terrace and the house, at the end of August, would 
prevent most people thinking about the terrace-walk.° The beds 
were all thoroughly filled, and 1 did not notice a faded leaf or a 
decayed truss ot bloom on any of them. X called on a forenoon, 
and a children’s fete was to take place on the afternoon, and some 
extra care might have been exercised, though Mrs. Ames assured 
me that Mr. Donaldson, the excellent gardener, kept them alwavs 
in equally good condition. 
FIC.i 
The groups could hardly be simpler. That, named Eig. 2, is 
immediately in front of the house. No. 1 extends more from the 
conservatory end of the house towards the kitchen-garden 
boundary, with the raised terrace on one side, the same as in the 
case of No. 2. 
The planting in group 1st is as follows :— 
1, 1, Scarlet Defiance Verbena, edged with Mrs. Holford. 
2, 2, General Simpson, edged with ditto. 
3, 3, Heliotrope Miss Nightingale, purple. 
4, 4, Purple Petunia. 
5, 5, 5, 5, Rosy-pink Geranium. 
6, 6, 6, G, Yellow Calceolaria, with splendid plants of Humea 
elegans in the centre, the lower branches of bloom sweeping close 
to the Calceolarias. 
7, 7, 7, 7, Verbena venqsa in the centre, surrounded with 
Scarlet Geranium, and then edged with variegated Manglesii, 
making thus five rows in the narrow beds. 
8, a raised bed, formed, as it were, of three baskets, the lowest 
being on the ground level. The highest and smallest fully six 
feet above it, and the middle-sized one in the centre; so placed 
that the plants iu each basket were seen distinctly, and yet no 
great space between them. This raised triple-bed, or basket, was 
beautifully filled with Brilliant Geranium—a dense mass of 
scarlet, with the foliage more white than usual. A light fringe 
of the variegated Alyssum surrounded each of the three baskets : 
and were I to indulge in criticism, I should say that the colour 
was too similar to the leaves of the Geranium ; and that a purple, 
a blue, or even a yellow that would have hung a little from the 
two upper baskets would have been more telling. Perhaps, also, 
two of the beds of purple might have been replaced with yellow. 
The outside beds, 7, were, owing to their narrowness, rather 
crowded, though more than excusable in the present thirst for 
variety. Three lines would have shown the colours more dis¬ 
tinctly than the five; and, considering the huge blaze of colour 
in the centre, I question—though I should not like to decide— 
whether one colour in these four 7-beds would not have been 
more telling. The mere plan will fail to convey an idea of the 
beauty of this group—unless the high triple basket in tho centre 
and the splendid plants of Humea in No. G be kept in mind, 
which, together, drove away everything like tameness. 
Eig. 2nd in front ot the windows was also very telling: and 
yet how simple the figures! and, as a whole, how simple and 
uniform the planting! Good people who imagine that the beauty 
of a flower garden consists in quirks, and cracks, and curves, and 
scrolls, might here find for themselves a note of inquiry. The 
long beds, 2, 3, look a little more artistic with their ends rounded ; 
but when planted and full they would have looked equally well as 
simple parallelograms. 
Fig. 2. 
The six small circles, No. 1, are each seven feet in diameter, 
filled with yellow Calceolaria, edged with the best Lobelia speciosa , 
and centered with fine specimens of Humea elegans. The foui- 
long beds, (2), seven feet by sixteen, Brilliant Geranium—and 
brilliant they were. Two long beds at each end. 3, White Geranium 
Hendersonii in the centre, with a broad band of Tom Thumb. 
Two 4s, Floiver of the Day Geranium, mixed with Geant des 
Batailles Verbena. The circles, 5, in the centre being the base 
of elegant wooden vases, covered with bark and rising to the 
height of five feet; the top being some 30 inches or so across, 
and planted with Alma Geranium, edged with blue Lobelia; end 
a few creepers, as Lophospermum and Maurandya, friDging thinly 
the sides of the vase. 6 , Bunch Geranium, edged with Cineraria 
maritima. 
. I am no great advocate for placing elegant vases of any kind 
in the centre of beds; yet in this case the effect produced by 
them, as well as the Humeas, in lifting up, as it were, the whole 
group was very good. I had heard a great deal of the mixture 
of the Floiver of the Day and the Verbena, and perhaps I expected 
too much from it. All ladies who have seen it and have mentioned 
it to me were delighted with it. The mode of management 
could not be beaten. The flowers were all removed from Floiver 
of the Day. The Verbenas stood regularly over the bed—so 
thick as to make a regular curved outline with their flowers over 
the raised circle, and yet so thin as to show the foliage of tie 
Geranium beneath them. Perhaps the sun was unpropitious 
that day; at any rate, I thought the light passing through the 
Verbenas gave the leaves of the Geraniums a sickly- yellow-green 
hue. I can hardly, however, be a judge, as I have become pretty 
