June  24,  1897. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER , 
567 
It  may  well  be  asked,  What  was  the  condition  of  our  gardens  at  that 
time  ?  The  borders  were  filled  with  miscellaneous  collections  of  plants 
of  what  people  call  now  old-fashioned  flowers.  There  was  always 
plenty  of  colour  and  of  perfume,  although  the  plants  were  very  much 
muddled  together ;  while  the  Roses,  which  were  scattered  amongst  them, 
were  Moss  and  China,  and  others  which  go  now  under  the  name  of 
summer  flowering  Roses ;  and  while  there  are  many  nurseries  which  have 
risen  up  since  those  days,  one  must  not  forget  that  there  were  many  in 
and  around  London,  the  memory  of  which  is  cherished  by  the  few  who 
remain  of  that  generation.  There  were  Rollisson  of  Tooting,  Glen- 
dinning  of  Chiswick,  Jackson  of  Kingston,  E.  G.  Henderson  of  Pine 
Apple  Place,  for  whose  representatives  of 
the  present  day  we  search  in  vain  ;  and 
there  were  others  whose  descendants  still 
remain  with  us,  and  whose  names  are  as 
household  words  amongst  us  —  Yeitch  of 
Chelsea,  Fraser  of  Lee  Bridge,  Low  of 
Clapton,  Cutbush  of  Highgate  ;  while 
looking  a  little  further  afield  one  recol¬ 
lects  the  Rivers  of  Sawbridgeworth,  the 
Pauls  of  Cheshunt  and  Waltham  Cross, 
Turner  of  Slough,  Smith  of  Worcester, 
Lucombe,  Pince  &  Co.  of  Exeter,  and 
Waterer  of  Bagshot.  In  all  these  cases 
the  sixty  years  of  Her  Majesty’s  reign 
have  witnessed  a  marvellous  develop¬ 
ment. 
With  many  of  those  good  men  and  true 
whose  names  are  first  mentioned  I  had  in 
those  bygone  days  much  pleasant  inter¬ 
course,  for  I  had  a  very  omnivorous 
appetite,  and  whether  the  plants  grown 
were  the  aristocratic  Orchid  or  the  plebeian 
Pansy,  they  never  failed  to  interest  me, 
and  yet  to  many  of  the  present  generation 
the  names  of  those  bygone  heroes  of  the 
gardening  world  have  no  meaning  what¬ 
ever.  So  it  is  in  everything  ;  and  no 
matter' in  what  a  man  has  been  interested 
— science,  art,  or  literature,  the  past  brings 
up  the  most  faint  shadows,  which  he  finds 
it  difficult  to  retain.  It  will  thus  be  seen 
that  my  view  of  the  state  of  horticulture 
in  1837  and  thereabouts  was  not  such  as  to 
leave  too  much  room  for  boasting  on  the 
part  of  the  present  generation,  while  it 
was  such  as  to  leave  room  for  the  ample 
development  in  every  department  which 
has  since  taken  place. 
Changes  in  Gardens. 
Having  thus  prepared  the  way  to  con¬ 
sider  what  those  developments  have  been, 
and  to  what  causes  they  are  attributable, 
let  me  then  take  as  the  foundation  of 
all,  the  conditions  of  gardens  themselves 
now  and  then.  I  have  already  stated 
what  gardens  were  in  those  days,  and  it 
is  interesting  to  mark  how  fashion  has 
moulded  this  as  other  things.  Who  can-  Fig.  117.— Pines  Smooth 
not  recollect  the  utter  subversion  of  the 
gardens  of  old  times  by  what  is  known 
as  the  bedding  out  system  1  Many  an  old  garden  had  been  meta¬ 
morphosed  by  thiB  new-fangled  notion ;  old  plants  that  had  loDg 
by  their  beauty  or  fragrance  adorned  the  borders  were  ruthlessly 
uprooted,  and  every  available  resource  was  utilised  for  the  purpose  of 
raising  the  thousands  of  plants  which  were  required  for  this  Dew 
system  ;  and  the  value  of  a  plant  came  to  be  reckoned  by  its  capability 
of  being  used  or  not  for  this  purpose.  Our  gardens  became  a  mass  of 
glaring  colours  in  which  the  scarlet  “  Geranium,”  the  yellow  Calceolaria, 
and  the  blue  Lobelia  bore  a  conspicuous  part  ;  and  long  dissertations 
were  given  upon  the  value  of  some  new  plants  which  might  be 
made  available.  At  first  these  were  restricted  to  beds ;  then  came 
the  rage  for  ribbon  borders,  in  which  long  rows  of  red  and  yellow 
were  combined  with  foliage  plants,  such  as  Perilla  and  Iresine,  to  be 
used  as  contrasts. 
Then  there  came  a  further  development  of  this — what  was  called  the 
carpet  system,  in  which  Alternantheras  and  similar  plants  were  used, 
together  with  various  coloured  stones  and  even  glass  for  the  walks. 
These  beds  had  to  be  kept  constantly  clipped,  and  where  the  garden  was 
any  way  extensive  five  or  six  men  might  be  seen,  as  I  have  seen  them, 
on  their  knees  clipping  away  with  scissors,  so  that  you  might  have 
imagined  yourself  to  have  been  in  Truefitt’s,  while  as  far  as  beauty  and 
fragrance  were  concerned  you  might  as  well  have  thrown  a  piece  of 
Turkey  carpet  upon  the  ground.  The  worst  feature  of  the  whole  thing 
was  this— that  it  invaded  our  cottage  gardens,  and  many  of  the  old- 
fashioned  flowers  were  displaced  by  some  of  these  new  colours,  and 
instead  of  these  gardens  being  filled  with 
plants  which  could  very  well  take  care  of 
themselves,  tender  things  had  to  be  grown 
for  which  some  kind  of  protection  had  to 
be  found  during  the  winter. 
There  was  one  way,  however,  in  which 
this  system  was  found  acceptable,  and 
where  it  is  not  even  now  out  of  place — I 
mean  in  public  parks  and  gardens.  Here  a 
mass  of  colour  is  always  acceptable  to  the 
populace,  and  the  same  people  do  not,  as 
in  private  gardens,  look  at  it  every  day. 
Connected  with  this  was  what  was  called 
sub-tropical  gardening,  in  which  really 
tender  plants  were  utilised  for  the  same 
purpose  ;  but  this  was  almost  exclusively 
confined  to  public  gardens,  and  was  exten¬ 
sively  employed  in  the  parks  of  Paris,  from 
whence  the  taste  came  to  our  own  country. 
We  are  a  people  that  deal  much  in  ex¬ 
tremes,  and  when  we  have  passed  all  reason¬ 
able  limits  there  comes  the  revulsion  of 
feeling  and  the  reversion  of  practice. 
This  change  of  taste  has  completely 
altered  the  appearance  of  all  private 
gardens.  In  places  where  there  is  room 
for  it,  various  styles  of  gardening  are 
still  carried  out  ;  but  in  those  of  small 
extent,  such  as  are  by  far  the  greater 
proportion  of  our  English  gardens,  the 
herbaceous  system  has  very  nearly  ousted 
the  former  glaring  style  ;  and  it  is  curious 
to  notice  how  the  law  of  demand  and 
supply  has  come  into  force  to  meet  the 
new  departure.  It  was  not,  of  course,  at 
first  popular — indeed,  I  knew  of  one  case 
where  a  garden  had  been  long  filled  with 
herbaceous  plants  of  various  kinds  ;  it 
passed  into  other  hands,  and  these  were  all 
assiduously  rooted  out,  to  the  great  grief 
of  the  former  occupier,  who  used  to  tell 
with  a  chuckle  how  this  very  same  person 
after  a  little  while  was  known  to  grope 
about  in  the  rubbish  heap,  to  try  and  rescue 
some  of  the  plants  which  he  had  discarded, 
for  he  saw  how  wrong  he  had  been,  and  was 
anxious  to  repair  the  mischief. 
Cayenne  (page  555). 
In  consequence  of  this  change  al1  over 
the  country  establishments  started  into 
existence,  whose  main  and  sometimes  sole  object  was  the  cultiva¬ 
tion  of.  hardy  herbaceous  plants.  The  great  York  nursery  of  Messrs. 
Backhouse  &  Son  had  long  been  celebrated  for  these  things,  and  I 
think  their  piece  of  rockwork  is  without  exception  the  most  perfect 
and  successful  example  of  the  kind  in  the  kingdom,  and  among  my 
pleasant  reminiscences  of  gardens  that  I  have  seen  this  holds  a  foremost 
place.  Other  establishments,  however,  soon  claimed  attention.  Mr. 
Ware  of  Tottenham,  Messrs.  Paul  &  Son  of  Chesbunt,  Mr.  Barr  of 
Ditton,  Mr.  Pritchard  of  Christchurch,  Mr.  Smith  of  Newry,  the  Guild¬ 
ford  Hardy  Plant  Nursery,  Mr.  Wood  of  Kirkstall,  Dicksons  of  Chester, 
Smiths  of  Worcester,  are  amongst  those  who  have  catered  to  the  public 
taste  in  this  respect.  But  of  a  truth  one  can  hardly  now  go  into  a 
nursery  of  any  extent  without  finding  a  section  devoted  to  herbaceous 
plants. 
