2y7 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Febbttaby 14, 1860. 
one bed—the Box good, tbe Japonica better, and tbe 
Golden Holly best. But there is a harmony of com¬ 
bination. We combine, or put together, two or more things, 
or plants of the same kind of leaf, and of the same 
colour, to the leaves in different degrees of intensity, or 
of strength, and the whole put together will look as so 
many degrees of the very same thing, and so placed as 
that the one would help the other; as the Box tree with 
Rhododendron leaves and the Aucuba were placed to 
accord in two different light greens, or two degrees of 
the same thing. The foundation of all flower gardening, 
and of planting beds of all kinds of evergreens which are 
under ten feet high, is founded on that rock, and on none 
other—founded on the harmony of contrast, and on the 
harmony of combination. The nearer we come to the 
highest contrast, and to the most perfect combination of 
running shades iu leaves or in flowers, the surer we are 
on that foundation. 
After the plants we use rise higher than ten feet, 
another rule, equally founded on natural laws, comes into 
play—I mean the natural habits of these plants ; but that 
rule affects planting trees and shrubs in mass or plan¬ 
tations, with which we have nothing to do in planting 
beds. 
More beds on the plan of “ The Doctor's Boy,” “ of 
a more economical character than is practised in largo 
establishments,” have been asked for, and also another 
style of grouping dwarf evergreens in beds for the whole 
year, which we have recently recommended in these 
pages. Skimmia Japonica was one of the evergreens in 
this aiTangement; but it seems yet, from what we hear, 
that this plant is not sufficiently known among countx*y 
nurserymen, or they do not possess a sufficient stock of 
it to enable them to sell it so cheap as to enable the 
people to plant it in cpxantity. Some say it is more of a 
greenhouse plant; and some that it is moi’e suited for 
planting under the shade of trees, like the Aucuba, Box 
tree, or some of the evergreen large-leaved Berberises. 
The latter may be true to a certain degree, but in the 
climate of London the Skimmia is quite hardy, and does 
out on the lawn in the full sun to my own knowledge and 
satisfaction. For here, as Mr. Rivers says about the 
young roots of his pot fruit tree, “seeing is believing 
although, generally speaking, I do not always believe 
the one-half of what I see with my own eyes. Keep to 
“ natur ” and I shall believe all I can see of it, if I under¬ 
stand it—not without; I must have the evidence of moi’e 
than the one sense of seeing before I would pin my 
faith to the sleeve of a philosopher. But come to art 
and artificial doings, and no man of metal should ever 
believe many of the things he may see, as clear as cut 
glass, any day he walks abroad. Why, it was only the 
last Christmas-day, or rather the day after, that I went 
with a big boy to see the fun at the Crystal Palace, lest 
he should see too much and get out of his depth in the 
crush of the crowd; and there I saw a man with an 
empty hat in his hand—he shook it, and, presto, it began 
to boil over furiously, and throw up streams and volumes 
of pure flocky feathers, soft and silvery as swan’s down, 
and in sufficient quantity to fill a feather-bed and ever 
so many pillows. All that was done by a perfect rule 
of art, yet I did not believe it; but I know of others 
who firmly believe iu some rules in gardening which are 
just as far from the truth as was that stream of flocky 
feathery. On the other hand, there are thousands who 
believe in what they cannot see for the moment—the 
rules of flower gardening, for instance. They are not 
my rules, I only endeavour to rule with them, and my 
only wish is, that I could rule straigliter; but there 
are thousands who believe in them without being at all 
able to see them, a fact which we are made aware of from 
the number of plans and letters about flower gardens 
and beds which reach us constantly from all parts of the 
country. 
About a substitute for Skimmia, There is absolutely 
none on our list: its dark green plain leaves were put in 
harmonious contrast with the best golden-yellow leaves 
of the yellow variegated Holly, with the low-growing 
Heath, Erica Jterbacea, in front of it. But do away with 
the Heath, and substitute Pernettia mucronaia for it, 
then Vaccinium ovatum would be j ust, in place ; but the 
two would need more care than the Heath and the Skim¬ 
mia. They would require to be pruned in every year 
after flowering, to keep them in the proportions of heights 
necessary for bedding plants. 
Vaccinium buxifolium is another very low and nice 
bedding plant for all the year round ; but such evergreen 
beds are not suited for every garden, nor for every part 
of a garden. Everything about a garden ought to be on 
some plan or system before it can give real pleasure to 
visitors who understand such things, and those who do 
are more numerous in these days than some people think. 
Hear water or rockwork, or on the edges of steep banks, 
and even on the slopes of banks, near the ends or corners, 
and in open glades, in shrubberies, or part plantations, 
are the proper places for these low masses, or beds of 
evergreens to last the year round. Just as Mr. Fish 
and “ Rose’s ” Gannas and other exotic tail-looking 
things come in best at long distances from the walks and 
windows, and in front of dark masses of taller evergreens, 
or near the edges of water, where you could come clo3& 
up to them at the bend of a walk. 
I highly approve of these Cannas in their proper 
places. Discolor is by far the best of them all for grandeur 
of effect: no plant I know is more beautiful in the leaves 
after it has been a month in the open air than Canna 
discolor, with its large leaves onc-haif bronzed purple and 
one-half deep green, and shining in the morning sun like 
some fairy crystallinum. Without stove heat, however, to 
get it well up in the spring it is of very little use, and with¬ 
out that assistance none of them rise over a yard, or from 
that to four feet; but to get the real goodness from them 
the tall sorts should not be under five feet high at plant¬ 
ing-out time. Canna Indica is as hardy as most of tho 
Fuchsias, and will live out of doors by having a good 
cone of ashes over it in the winter. I had it so for years ; 
and it bloomed yearly and ripened seeds which vegetated 
next year in the open beds. 
There are from thirty to forty kinds of stove plants of 
the same looks and habits as the Cannas, which will do in 
the open air in summer much better than they ever yet 
did in pots in the stove. All the Hedychiums are of tho 
same degree of hardiness for out-of-door work as Cannas; 
but those of them with narrow leaves, like the Ginger 
plant are not worth putting out. You want something 
grand about exotics in tho open air. The Pampas Grass 
would be no better than pond-weeds were it not for the 
grandeur of its plumed flower-heads. 
Tho old Maranta, now Calathea zebrina, is the very 
next in striking beauty to Canna discolor; and if it could 
be had at six or seven feet high, like that Canna, no plant 
in the world could match it in splendour. I had it in an 
exotic garden once, finer than I ever saw it in-doors. All 
these reed-like plants like a deep, moist, sandy soil; and 
the more rotten leaf mould is added to it the more shining 
and more beautiful they will look, and every one of them 
will grow in water up to the knees. There is an open 
wide ditch running in front of the Botanic Garden at 
Oxford, in which all these and many more stove plants 
grow luxuriantly every summer if the gardeners merely 
throw the refuse of the potting-bench down there. Dim- 
nocharis Humboldtii —that yellow-floating flower in the 
crystal lakes at the Crystal Palace—will run and bloom 
in that open ditch like any species of home-aquatic; of 
course the frost takes them oflT, but none of them will go 
so soon or so readily as the Regent Potatoes. 
The crowning cap of this stamp and style of gardening 
is the falcata Bamboo of tho Indian hills, the Pampas 
Grass, the Tritoma uvaria, and the Canna discolor. 
Plant a long row at the margin of a lake, or under 
