340 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER, AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, August 31, 1858. 
to the best advantage ; and in arranging the colours in 
a more natural way than formerly, than paying much f 
attention to the secrets of the art of planting to the 
best advantage. 
The first grand secret in planting is, to have the 
height of the plants bear a certain proportion to the 
width across the bed. The want of suitable plants 
for the sizes of beds must have been the cause for 
training down plants, or, rather, part of the cause,— 
fashion taking about one-half of the responsibility of 
training down plants. 
Now, when “our own correspondents 5 ’ write to 
us, to ask about a thing, every one of them, young 
and old, male and female, will ask about the best of 
every mortal thing; and when we take the average 
best, and name it, w r e merely puzzle a large number 
of our most knowing readers, and, what is more likely 
than not, the very person who is specially answered 
may have the greatest puzzle of all, or the greatest 
disappointment. That part of our calling will not be 
much better understood, or more correctly managed, 
until we raise the nation as much higher above the 
present level as that level is in advance of the practice 
of planting which obtained twelve years back. 
A prize coloured drawing of a flower garden of those 
days, by a friend of mine—one of our best flower 
gardeners—was shown to me lately in a book of 
standard merit, and I am quite sure that a reading 
cottager far down in the country would turn up his 
nose at that plan now, if he was asked to plant his beds 
that way. But it is only right to name, that my 
friend, the author of that plan, is much of the same 
opinion now as the said cottager it is supposed would 
be, and that he declared as much in the presence of a 
few “ spirits of the age ” not very long ago, as one of 
our Editors may remember. But every change in 
plan and purpose connected with flower gardening, 
the very youngest of the arts, does but smooth the 
way more thoroughly for the reception of higher aims, 
higher qualities, and long-wished-for excellences, which 
are plain enough to some minds at the first Start, 
but which are, as yet, but dreams to a large class 
of respectable operative planters, and never yet 
heard of by the great bulk of the gardening world. 
One of these “'aims ” is the very cause of the bother 
among the bestmongers. But what may be best for 
one person is not the best for all, in many things 
about the garden. The best Verbenas for my beds 
are certainly not the best, or second best, kinds for 
the beds of some of my neighbours at Surbiton. We 
have the same soil, the same climate, aspect, and 
shelter, and yet we differ widely in the plants which 
are best fitted for our beds. If I knew as much 
about the beds of all my readers as I know about 
these, I should have no difficulty in deciding at once 
which was the best plant of this or that kind to suit 
them ; but, as it is, I can only state the average run ; 
no one can do otherwise under the circumstances. 
The average run of beds is the six-feet across, and 
from that down to four feet across. Now, the best 
plant for a bed from four to six feet across might 
happen to be one of the most unsuitable plants in the 
country for a small bed,—say, one under three feet 
across,—and the same plant might only be fit for an 
edging plant to a bed which is ten or twelve feet 
across. 
In grouping beds, some of them will be twice and 
three times larger than others, and, if a group of beds 
is not planned from a common centre, the outer beds 
in the group ought to be the largest, because the 
strongest colours are more telling on the outside. 
But, if there is a centre to the group, the centre bed 
may be as large, or larger, than the side ones ; the main 
point is, not to plant such a centre bed with gaudy 
colours, so as to draw the eye to that point. The centre 
bed may be the largest in the garden, and the most 
richly planted, but must not be the most showy or 
gaudy. 
The difference between a gaudy and a rich hed is 
this ,—Tom Thumb, or any scarlet Geranium, makes a 
rich bed, which is very showy or gaudy ; and Flower 
of the Day, or any other variegated Geranium, makes 
a rich bed, but not a showy or gaudy one. Make the 
centre bed, therefore, as gay or rich as you choose, but 
never rich and gaudy ; the outside of a group being 
gaudy with scarlet, white, and yellowq and with blue, 
if it is near the eye. The beds for these colours should 
be considerably larger than the rest of the beds 
between them and the centre bed. 
If ever you see a plan for beds on the grouping 
system, and any bed in the group is larger than the 
outside beds, or as large as the centre bed, that plan is 
wrong, radically wrong, and no one can ever plant 
that group on the best telling system. Then it follows, 
that in a common garden, or in an ordinary group of 
beds in any garden, there w ill be three sizes of beds ; 
and every size, from the very smallest to the largest 
bed, requires a certain size of plant to suit it best. 
Therefore, the Verbenas, Calceolarias, and Geraniums, 
at least ought, each of them, to furnish three sizes of 
best plants, and every section of bedding Geranium 
ought also to give a suitably-sized plant to each size 
of bed. I repeat, that great planters consider this the 
grand secret for a proper disposition of heights, as 
they say, which is altogether independent of placing 
the colours properly. 
When every one who keeps a flow^er garden under¬ 
stands that secret, the next call upon the cross¬ 
breeders will be, to get the best-sized seedlings in 
every tint of colour which is used in the garden,— say, 
three sizes in every tint, large size, medium size, and 
small size. The Verbenas are the most numerous, 
but they do not yet furnish the requisite bests, because 
they have not yet been called for, which has caused 
some most useful seedlings of them, and of many 
others, to drop out of cultivation for want of demand. 
The Crystal Palace, Iiew, and Hampton Court, are 
the best public places, near London, to learn flower 
gardening, from seeing w hat is in use, and the wrny use 
is made of the different kinds of plants. The narrowest 
beds in all the three is only fifteen or eighteen inches 
wide, and there are three rows of plants in it,—that is, 
hardly six inches in width to one kind. Now, what is 
the best kind for this six-inch width? Or take the 
three feet border, all round the top of the Bose mount, 
which is planted with three row s of plants, giving a 
foot to each kind, as I stated last week,—which are the 
best plants for a three feet wide bed, allowing three 
row s to the bed, and one kind in each row ? 
We must not be guided altogether by w hat others 
do. I took an exception to the plants in that circle, 
or rather to one of them, the variegated Alyssum ; but 
then it may have been an experiment, to see if the 
soft looks of the Alyssum would agree with the hard 
dry looks of the old scarlet variegated Geranium, and 
it so happens that it does not agree. Therefore, that 
may never be x-epeated there. The variegated Alyssum 
will, then, destroy the effects of all the variegated 
Geraniums alike. But the desti’uction is more com¬ 
plete when the two kinds are mixed, than wlien they 
are in separate row's, side by side, and less still when 
there is a large mass of variegated Geranium, edged 
with a trim line of the Alyssum. Would the tiling do 
better if, instead of the two outside rows in that 
border being variegated Geranium, they were of the 
Lobelia speciosa ? No, not in that particular situation, 
on account of the surrounding parts ; but it is easy to 
conceive a single narrow bordei*, when a row of 
