WORTHY OF GENERAL CULTURE. 
25 
GROUP OF THE WHITE JAPAN ANEMONE. (j AP °N<CA ALBA OR 
HONORINE JOBART.) 
not. The kinds of Yucca that flower very freely, such as Yucca recurva and Yucca flacida, lend themselves for grouping with 
Flame Flowers (Tritoma) and the bolder autumn plants. Year by year the gardener, who is not worried to death with 
excessive planting in the beginning of summer by thinking over the matter and visiting extensive collections, could devise 
some beautiful new feature, or series of groups, and soon a place might be fairly well furnished with such. Then, by way 
of relief, a few groups of the more 
suitable tender plants, such as Cannas 
and Dahlias, mixed, would add to the 
beauty and variety of the whole. 
Waste of Effort.— No plan 
which involves an expensive yearly 
effort on the same piece of ground can 
ever be wholly' satisfactory, and mainly 
because it is great waste. All plants 
require attention, and then all, as many 
know', require liberal expenditure to 
do them justice. But they do not re¬ 
quire this annually. The true way is 
quite a different one — the devotion of 
the skill, expense and effort to a new 
spot or situation each year. The 
“ fresh designs,” instead of supplanting 
those made the previous y'ear for the 
same spot, should be carefully thought 
out and made to last for a half or a 
whole life-time, or perhaps generations. 
The right way does not exclude sum¬ 
mer “ bedding,” but it includes numer¬ 
ous possibilities of lovely and varied 
aspects of vegetation as to beauty, and even as to color, far beyond what is attainable in summer “ bedding.” The plan 
attempts to make the place generally and permanently beautiful. It also particularly helps to make the skill and labor of the 
gardener effective for permanent good, and not to be thrown away in annual firew'orks. The energy and skill wasted on 
this “ bedding out ” during the past dozen years in one small portion of many a large place would, if intelligently devoted 
to permanent and artistic planting of many flowers, shrubs and flowering and evergreen trees, make a garden and sylvan 
paradise of a small estate. 
No gardening can be done without care. But I have only to appeal to the common sense of the reader in asking him is 
there not a vast difference between some of the beds and groups just mentioned and those which wholly disappear with the 
frosts of October, leaving us nothing but bare earth and nothing in it ? 
Flowers in their Seasons. — The main charm of bedding plants, that of lasting in bloom such a length of time, is 
really their most serious fault, ft is the stereotyped kind of garden which we have to fight against ; we want artistic, beau¬ 
tiful and gratifying gardens. We should, therefore, have flowers of each season, and the flowers should tell the season. 
Too short a bloom is always a misfortune ; but a bloom may be also too prolonged. Numbers of hardy plants bloom quite 
as long as could be desired. Some afford a second bloom, as the Delphiniums. Others, like Lilium auratum, bloom one 
after the other for months ; while the short-lived kinds, like Irises, may be well used in combination with those which 
precede or succeed them. 
Beauty. — There is nothing whatever 
used in bedding out to be compared in any 
way — color, scent, size or bloom — to those 
specimens belonging to many families of hardy 
plants now obtainable. Those patronizing 
admissions of “interesting,” “pretty,” we 
sometimes hear, are ridiculously misplaced. 
There is no beauty at all among bedding plants 
comparable with that of Irises, Lilies, Del¬ 
phiniums, Evening Primroses, Pmonies, Carna¬ 
tions, Narcissi, and a host of others. Are we to 
put aside all this glorious beauty, or put it into a 
second place, for the sake of the comparatively 
few things that merely make beds and lines of 
color? Let those who like bedding flowers 
enjoy them : but no one who knows what the 
plants of the northern and temperate world 
are can admit that their place is a secondary 
tVEO.NIES IN THE GRASS. 
