66 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Mat 15, 1860. 
be abused, and loudest talked about. And there is not a 
pin to choose between that fit and cut, and the arrange¬ 
ment of your flowers on a scientific basis. The basis or 
foundation of any fashion in flowers which will outlive an 
age being just as scientific as the science of flowers can 
be during the same period. The opinions of scientific 
men, in relation to flowers, change with every age fully 
as much as the fashions of an age do among women of all 
ages, and among their dolls when they are little girls. 
But civilisation, high breeding, and social intercourse 
join hands here, to deceive the most innocent; the three 
will join in chorus in admiration of your skill, as exem¬ 
plified before them, in that flower garden of yours, then 
go away and criticise it, as it ought to be criticised, and 
if it is an inch out of place, or a shade out of order, they 
will pull it to rags without mercy; the poor innocent all 
the ■while believing her friends to have been in raptures 
with her success. It is only from family or very intimate 
friends that she can ever expect to hear a right judg¬ 
ment on her flower garden, unless she reads such books 
as The Cottage Gardener, where the writers make it 
a point of conscience to tell the truth, whether it be 
for or against you. But if telling the truth, or the whole 
truth, had been considered the highest point of civili¬ 
sation, every one who knew a turn of flower gardening 
would tell the truth about the thing, just as we do, and 
then there would be little use in writing books on the 
subject, for it could be easier learned among one’s friends. 
What is here stated is not confined to the higher classes— 
far from it—the spirit pervades all ranks of society, and 
rivalry is just as hot as criticism in all ranks of society. 
There are Mrs. Barley in No. 2, and Mrs. Johnson in 
No. 3, Flora Cottages, my next and second-next door 
neighbours, priding themselves in having excelled their 
landlord in window flowers, as they certainly have done, 
and, no doubt, talking together across the fence about 
you, and all the rest of the readers of The Cottage 
"Gardener, to the effect that if you were to see my 
window-boxes now, with nothing better than Wallflowers 
in, and hardly enough of them, you could not believe the 
one-half of what I write about flowers ; and yet if my 
boxes were full of Dendrobiums in full bloom fit for a 
show, no one would give me credit for it. “ No thanks 
to him, he is an old gardener, and is always talking or 
writing about flowers ; if he expects people to be always up 
to the mark, he could do no less than grow Dendrobiums 
that way.” So, you see, good or bad is just the same to 
me, and such as I am situated, but for the rest of the 
world to be held up as know-nothings about flower 
gardens is dreadful. Therefore, let no one attempt to 
plant a single bed without well considering how the 
colours will suit when the whole come into bloom. 
It is true flowers will look well in the mass, plant them 
how you will; but that is not the question now-a-days, 
but, r\re they arranged according to the fashion of the 
day P No bed can look richer than one planted with this 
Crystal Palace Scarlet Geranium ; but a far more telling 
bed, to a good cultivated eye, could be planted with three 
or five kinds of Geraniums, with the various shades which 
are already compounded, as it were, in the flowers of the 
Crystal Palace kind. The colour of a good bright scarlet 
Geranium is compoimded of crimson, pink, lake, or car¬ 
mine, and purple, in different degrees ; and if you can 
supply the pure colours, and put them together in the 
right proportions, the effect will be three times or five 
times as good as that from using the one plant only in 
which the colour is already compounded. Besides the 
blaze to satisfy the vulgar eye, you add the charm of 
variety ; for that way of disposing colours ought to be 
the meaning of the expression “ variety.” The way of 
planting a Tulip-bed, or a Dahlia-bed, on the fancy of a 
florist, putting in the colours as the drops fall on the 
slates, is by him called variety ; but it is nothing of the 
kind. It is a mixture on a green ground, the leaves, just 
as the dotting on a dark ground is known as Oxford 
mixture, only a greater distance from variety; for the 
more colours on the green the more is the mixture and 
the less the contrast between the different colours and 
the one ground colour. 
The best way of showing a variety of colours in a bed 
is to plant every variety of colour by itself, and next to 
that with which it best agrees. As for instance, in a case 
which could never yet have been done—a new bed, say. 
Put a row of Imperial Crimson round the outside of the 
bed, or along the front of ribbon-border; next put King- 
horns Christine —the two shades farthest from scarlet, 
the one the strongest, and the other the weakest in the 
compound: therefore they balance the part. The third 
row to be of my Carmine Nosegay, the very next shade 
after Christine. Here, then, there is not only the variety 
of the three shades of colour, but a double variety in the 
difference of habit of the first and third-row plants from 
that of those in the centre row. The three kinds planted 
that way in a circular bed would be perfection as far as 
the colours and habits go. But now add a darker shade 
of scarlet, or a very light purple, which is the same thing ; 
and after that no one can add another kind to help the 
beauty without first introducing a white flower or a 
variegated plant to make a break before another start. 
Then, on the true principle of colouring with flowers, the 
colours on one side of the “break” line must corre¬ 
spond exactly with the colours on the first side of it in a 
bed intended for scarlet: therefore no break-line is needed. 
After the darkest scarlet is reached you are up in the 
centre of the bed, or ought to be; and each way you look 
at a circular bed so planted, you have the very same tints 
all round up to the darker centre. That dark centre we 
have been all looking after for the last twenty years, 
when I began flower-gardening first on a scientific basis, 
and I had the good luck to be the finder of it myself the 
year before last, and I called it my lucky star - —in dog 
Latin Stella, or Nosegay Stella —and my agents have 
hundreds of it on sale. It is different from that when 
one is planting rows on a ribbon-border. Every two rows 
on a ribbon may contrast as much as one chooses. The 
rows in the round bed did not contrast—they combined, 
each its own shade, to form a whole scarlet complement, 
or as nearly so as our plants will allow. 
But if a ribbon-border -were in the same lines—that is, 
1st, Imperial Crimson; 2nd, Christine; 3rd, Carmine 
Nosegay; and 4th, Stella Nosegay; no more purple or 
scarlet lines must be used without a break of white, or 
blue, or yellow; because any other shade of purple, or 
scarlet, or crimson, or lake, after once passing up to the 
darkest scarlet— Stella, would make a muddle on the eye, 
or a mixture instead of variety; but a white line at the 
back of Stella would allow the eye to measure to there, 
and comprehend the meaning or style between it and the 
white line, then start again, as it were, to take in a 
different measure or design of colouring. 
Here fashion exacts another rule and line to complete 
this the most difficult style of ribboning. The rule is, if 
you break in the centre with a white line as we have just 
done, you must begin with a white line. That is not, 
however, essential with such high-coloured lines, they 
need no more light thrown on them. Therefore, although 
the front line of a ribbon ought to be white or whitish 
variegated, when the next row is blue or black, or dark 
in any shade, it is arbitrary in front of crimson, car¬ 
mine, scarlet, or lake; but fashion is stronger than 
passion for coloxirs, and a Cerastium-row three inches 
wide, or a Variegated Alyssum six inches wide, or a 
dwarf variegated Geranium of the silver-leaved kinds, 
must come in before Imperial Crimson, to begin a fashion¬ 
able ribbon based on the science of colours. 
Now, plant a row of Royal Dwarf Geranium, or any 
other kind of dwarf with Tom Thumb-like flowers, as 
Fire Ball, Princess Royal, Collins's Dwarf, Cooperii, or 
Tedworth Scarlet, for all these carry the very same 
weight in a front row. Let the second row be of Ilvnts- 
