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JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
May  15,  1902. 
A  good  selection  of  early  flowering  Chrysanthemums  in  the 
open  gardens  or  on  suitable  borders  among  other  plants  gives 
considerable  interest,  colour  and  useful  bloom  for  cutting  and 
decoration  in  the  autumn.  Fair-sized  bushy  plants  with  a  good 
ball  of  active  roots  transferred  now  to  the  ground  in  fertile  soi  , 
kept  moist  until  established,  and  the  ground  hoed  frequently,  vull 
soon  form  vigorous  bushes.  By  the  time  they  may  be  expected 
to  flower  neat  specimens  will  have  been  produced. 
As  it  is  not  yet  too  late  to  plant,  it  may  be  of  interest  to  note 
a  few  good  and  reliable  varieties  which  can  be  depended  upon  to 
give  excellent  flowers  of  medium  size,  or  perhaps  in  some  cases 
small  but  none  the  less  interesting  and  attractive.  ^  rule  the 
flowers  are  plentifully  produced,  little  if  any  disbudding  being 
practised.  ht  i  n 
Among  the  white  varieties  there  are  few  to  surpass  Madame  b. 
Desgranges,  Lady  Fitzwygram,  Mytchett  White  and  Isabel 
Williams.  Red  or  bronze  varieties  are  represented  by  Harvmt 
Home,  Bronze  Prince,  Ambrose  Thomas,  Mytchett  Glory,  Nellie 
Brown,  and  Ryecroft  Glory.  The  rich  yellow  varieties  are  always 
attractive.  Alfred  Dron,  Emily  Grunerwald,  G.  Wermig,  Lemon 
Queen,  Miss  Dove  Elliott,  M.  Dupuis,  Mytchett  Beauty,  Sun¬ 
shine,  are  among  the  best.  n  i  •  i  a 
The  pink  or  rose  varieties  comprise  many  good  kinds.  A.  it. 
Manser  is  very  free,  the  flowers  being  a  pretty  shade  of  light, 
flesh  pink.  Albert  Rose,  Massi  Faire,  Notaire  Goon,  Pnde  of 
Mytchett  are  other  good  varieties.  The  crimson  varieties  are 
most  attractive,  affording  rich  contrasts  with  the  other  cqlours. 
Jeanne  Vuillermet  is  dark  crimson,  Jules  Mary,  dark  crimson. 
General  Hawkes,  crimson  amaranth  ;  Montague,  purple  cnmson  ; 
Roi  des  Precooes,  a  small  dwarf  bushy  habited  variety  with 
crimson  flowers.  Other  varieties  to  be  recommended  are  Ciim- 
son  Marie  Masse,  the  lilac  mauve  variety  of  the  same  name  and 
a  sport  named  Ralph  Curtis,  which  is  a  white  variety  from 
Madame  Marie  Masse. — ^E.  D.  S. 
Ideas  on  Bedding  Arrangements. 
It  has  often  been  said  that  we  Britishers  move  .slowly,  and 
perhaps  in  many  instances  it  is  w6ll  that  we  do,  for  it  sometimes 
prevents  us  from  committing  blunders  which  are  not  easily 
repaired.  John  Bull  certainly  takes  plenty  of  time  to  “  think 
about  ”  the  more  important  matters  of.  life,  but  in  little  things 
he  is  easily  “gulled,’'  and  led  into  practices  which  are  justly 
termed  ridiculous  when  sanity  returns.  The  craze  for  novelty 
and  change — which  are  such  marked  features  of  modern  life — 
will  sometimes  lead  the  most  staid  individuals  into  toituous, 
but  by  no  means  progressive,  paths,  and  the  fashion  of  the 
moment,  which  is  supposed  to  be  guided  by  authorities  on  taste 
and  art,  contributes  perhaps  more  than  anything  else  to  the 
hosts  of  shattered  ideals  which  strew  the  path  of  life. 
The  fault  of  the  fashion  makers  seems  to  be  that  they  take 
us  from  one  extreme  to  another,  and  in  nothing  is  this  more 
apparent  than  in  the  style  of  flower  garden  decoration  so  largely 
adopted  during  the  last  few  years.  The  old  formal  and  stereo¬ 
typed  style  undoubtedly  left  plenty  of  room  for  improvement, 
and  most  of  us  liav6  wGlcomcd  tli6  gi'acGful  and  artistic  inGtliod 
of  planting  flower  beds  and  borders  which  has  been  successfully 
practised  in  many  instances.  All  honour  is  due  to  those  who 
inaugurated  the  change,  i  fear,  however,  that  I  am  not  alone  in 
thinking  that  many  'would-be  imitators,  in  attempting  to  carry 
out  the  style  under  conditions  wholly  unsuitable,  have  made  a 
complete  muddle  of  it.  A  judicious  arrangement  of  tall  and 
dwarf  plants  in  borders  or  large  beds  can  do  much  to  produce 
an  extremely  pleasing  and  artistic  effect,  but  when  an  attempt  is 
made  to  do  this,  in  the  same  way,  in  a,  geometrical  garden  forined 
of  numbers  of  small  beds,  no  true  artist  could,  I  am  sure,  admire 
it,,  and  but  few  gardeners  would  pass  such  an  attempt  by  with¬ 
out  expressions  of  ridicule.  i  • 
The  most  glaring  mistakes  of  the  above  description  may 
sometimes  be  seen  in  flower  gardens  in  which  the  beds  are 
grouped  together  to  form  a  complete  design,  the  various  p^ts 
being  connected  by  a  series  of  scrolls.  I  do  not  say  that 
gardeners  are  entirely  to  blame  for  this,  as  their  employers  often 
express  the  wish  to  have  the  beds  planted  after  the  style  adopted 
at  such  and  such  a  place,  and  it  is  then  only  after  having  seen 
how  ill-adapted  such  a  method  of  arrangement  is  to  their  own 
case  that  some  employers  can  be  convinced.  Many  gardeners 
have,  however,  averted  a  failure  by  pointing  out  the  drawbacks 
before,  rather  than  after,  the  event.  I  fancj'  that  in  many  cases 
this  season  there  will  be  a  return  to  more  sensible  methods  of 
planting  gardens  of  formal  design. 
During  my  travels  last  year  I  met  with  one  of  those  old 
gardens  which  is  a  perfect  specimen  of  its  kind,  and  was  laid  out 
by  the  first  landscape  gardener  of  his  time.  The  attempt  to 
convert  this  into  a  miniature  “  wild  garden,”  or  to  plant  it  after 
the  fashion  of  the  mixed  border,  resulted  in  the  greatest 
“  muddle  ”  I  have  seen  for  a  long  time.  The  beauty  of  the  design 
as  a  Avhole  was  entirely  lost;  indeed,  what  the  design  really  was 
could  only  be  seen  by  wandering  along  the  dividing  paths.  All  this 
was  the  result  of  planting  beautiful  plants  with  a  straggling 
habit  of  growth  in  entirely  unsuitable  positions.  The  picture 
appealed  to  me — in  a  sense — for  I  felt  thankful  that  the  designer 
or  the  gardener  in  question  could  not  rise  from  his  grave  to 
lament  over  its  temporai’y  decadence.  I  thought,  too,  how  some 
gardeners  who  have  not  been  led  away  by  the  common  craze  to 
be  “  modern  ”  must  have  “  chuckled  ”  at  the  result  there 
achieved. 
Well,  I  have  now  done  with  critici.sm  for  a  time,  as  I  do  not 
want  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  criticism  is  useless  unless  in 
conjunction  with  it  ideas  are  advanced  which  will  tend  to 
improve  matters.  The  undesirable  results  already  treated  of  are 
brought  about  by  carrying  the  modern  system  of  planting  to  an 
extreme  point,  and  by  lack  of  judgment  in  disposing  plants 
of  various  habits  of  growth  to  the  best  advantage.  The  appear¬ 
ance  of  the  most  formally  designed  garden  can  be  made  far  more 
telling  by  introducing  a  few  tall  plants  here  and  there  than  by 
adhering  to  the  flat  surface  with  a  blaze  of  colour  which  was  so 
long  in  vogue.  But  the  designer  requires  a  good  sense  of  dis¬ 
crimination  to  cari-y  it  out  successfully,  and  it  is  better  to  use 
too  few  tall  plants  than  too  many,  as  it  is  so  easy  to  destroy  the 
balance  of  growth  which  should  prevail  in  beds  laid  out  in  a 
formal  way.  One  excellent  method  of  forming  an  oirinion  of  the 
ultimate  effect  (in  regard  to  height)  of  planting  certain  plants 
at  given  points,  is  to  insert  tall  sticks  at  such  points  before 
planting  begins,  as  the  practice  gives  a  capital  idea  as  to  whether 
or  not  the  height  at  such  points  will  be  too  great  or  if  the 
positions  are  well  chosen. 
In  all  flower  gardens  where  the  beds  are  foinnal  in  design 
there  should  be  plenty  of  spaces  between  the  tall  growing  plants 
to  enable  the  on-looker  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  all  the  colours 
employed  in  each  bed  forming  a  part  of  a  complete  desigti.  Many 
geometrical  gardens  were  originally  laid  out  with  a  view  to  the 
effect  to  be  ijroduced  from  a  terrace  or  from  the  rvindows  of  a 
mansion,  and  in  such  cases  the  effect  is  entirely  spoilt  by  having 
anything  like  a  solid  mass  of  tall  growing  plants  at  any  point. 
One  good  bold  plant  in  centre  of  a  bed  here  and  there  breaks 
up  the  surface  without  impeding  the  view,  whereas  a  larger 
number  of  the  same  plant  massed  together  rvould  be  too  heavy 
in  appearance,  and  would  unduly  obstruct  the  view.  Some 
flower  gardens  are  surrounded  by  shrubberies  with  tall  trees 
intermixed,  which  gives  them  a  confused  appearance,  and  in 
such  instances  tall  plants  should  be  disposed  much  more  sparingly 
in  the  beds  than  when  the  surroundings  are  more  open,  so  as  to 
show  extensive  view^s  beyond. 
By  using  “  dot  plants,”  such  as  tall  Fuchsias,  Abutilons, 
Grevilleas,  and  Gannas,  set  in  a  carpet  of  dwarfer  growing 
materials,  pretty  and  unique  beds  may  often  be  formed,  but  beds 
treated  in  that  way  ought  to  be  rather  larger,  and  the  system  is 
better  adapted  for  the  outlying  paiTs  of  a  flower  garden  than  to 
the  central  design  which  (in  private  places)  usually  consists  of 
numbers  of  small  beds  arranged  closely  together  and  often  con¬ 
nected  with  each  other.  In  the  latter  case,  if  a  few  tall  plants, 
such  as  Dracaena  australis,  Pandanus  utilis,  Gannas,  Ricinus, 
Eulalias,  or  Humea  elegans,  are  arranged  individually  at  well 
chosen  points,  and  the  other  occupants  of  the  beds  are  of  com¬ 
paratively  dwarf  growth,  a  free,  light,  and  at  the  same  time 
showy  effect  is  produced. 
When  large  beds  have  been  specially  made  for  the  purpose 
the  mixed  system  of  bedding  throughout  is  capable  of  adding 
features  of  groat  interest  and  pleasant  surprises  at  every  step ; 
but  a  greater  knowdedge  of  the  habits  of  plants  employed  is  in 
many  instances  necessary  in  order  to  get  something  approaching 
due  balance  of  growth.  The  effect  as  a  whole  is,  however,  never 
so  telling  as  when  masses  of  one  colour  are  employed,  with  the 
isolated  tall  plant  here  and  there  to  take  off  the  stiffness.  The 
point,  however,  which  I  wish  to  press  home  the  most  strongly 
is  the  incongruity  of  planting  a  mixture  of  “  weedy  ”  looking 
plants  in  beds  forming  part  of  an  intricate  design.  When  such 
a  method  of  planting  is  preferred  why  not  clear  away  the  whole 
design,  and  make  beds  adapted  to  that  style  of  planting  ? 
Gardeners  who  at  the  present  time  are  pondering  over  their 
bedding  arrangements  should  think  pretty  deeply  before  they 
depart  largely  from  methods  which  have  previously  given  satis¬ 
faction,  for  although  new  features  should  as  often  as  possible 
be  produced,  it  is  important  that  such  features  should  be  better, 
rather  than  inferior,  to  those  already  carried  out.— Onwakc. 
