The Subtropical Garden; or, beauty of form in the flower garden

Group and single specimens of plants isolated on the grass.

placed singly or in open groups near the margins of a bold clump of shrubs or in the open grass; and the system is applicable to all kinds of hardy ornamental subjects, from trees downwards, though in our case the want is for the fine-leaved plants and the more distinct hardy subjects. Nothing, for instance, can look better than a well-developed tuft of the broad-leaved Acanthus latifolius, springing from the turf not far from the margin of a pleasure-ground walk; and the same is true of the Yuccas, Tritomas, and other things of like character and hardiness. We may make attractive groups of one family, as the hardiest Yuccas; or splendid groups of one species like the Pampas grass-not by any means repeating the individual, for there are about twenty varieties of this plant known on the Continent, and from these half a dozen really distinct and charming kinds might be selected to form a group. The same applies to the Tritomas, which we usually manage to drill into straight lines; in an isolated group in a verdant glade they are seen for the first time to best advantage: and what might not be done with these and the like by making mixed groups, or letting each plant stand distinct upon the grass, perfectly isolated in its beauty!

Let us again try to illustrate the idea simply. Take an important spot in a pleasure-ground-a sweep of grass in face of a shrubbery-and see what can be done with it by means of these isolated plants. If, instead of leaving it in the bald state in which it is often found, we place distinct things isolated here and there upon the grass, the margin of shrubbery will be quite softened, and a new and charming feature added to the garden. If one who knew many plants were arranging them in this way, and had a large stock to select from, he might produce numberless fine effects. In the case of the smaller things, such as the Yucca and variegated Arundo, groups of four or five good plants should be used to form one mass, and everything should be perfectly distinct and isolated, so that a person could freely move about amongst the plants without touching them. In addition to such arrangements, two or three individuals of a species might be placed here and there upon the grass with the best effect. For example, there is at present in our nurseries a great Japanese Polygonum (P. Sieboldi), which has never as yet been used with much effect in the garden. If anybody will select some open grassy spot in a pleasure-garden, or grassy glade near a wood-some spot considered unworthy of attention as regards ornamenting it-and plant a group of three plants of this Polygonum, leaving fifteen feet or so between the stools, a distinct aspect of vegetation will be the result. The plant is herbaceous, and will spring up every year to a height of from six feet to eight feet if planted well; it has a graceful arching habit in the upper branches, and is covered with a profusion of small bunches of pale flowers in autumn. It is needless to multiply examples; the plan is capable of infinite variation, and on that account alone should be welcome to all true gardeners.

One kind of arrangement needs to be particularly guarded against-the geometro-picturesque one, seen in some parts of the London parks devoted to subtropical gardening. The plants are very often of the finest kinds and in the most robust health, all the materials for the best results are abundant, and yet the scene fails to satisfy the eye, from the needless formality of many of the beds, produced by the heaping together of a great number of species of one kind in long straight or twisting masses with high raised edges frequently of hard-beaten soil. Many people will not see their way to obliterate the formality of the beds, but assuredly we need not do so to get rid of such effective formality as that shown in the accompanying figure!

The formality of the true geometrical garden is charming to many to whom this style is offensive; and there is not the slightest reason why the most beautiful combinations of fine-leaved and fine-flowered plants should not be made in any kind of geometrical garden.

But in the purely picturesque garden it is as needless, as it is in false taste, to follow the course here pointed out. Hardy plants may be isolated on the turf, and may be arranged in beautiful irregular groups, with the turf also for a carpet, or some graceful spray of hardy trailing plants. Beds may be readily placed so that no such objectionable stage-like results will be seen as those shown in the preceding figure: tender plants may be grouped as freely as may be desired-a formal edge avoided by the turf being allowed to play irregularly under and along the margins, while the remaining bare ground beneath the tall plants may be quickly covered with some fast-growing annuals like Mignonette or Nolanas, some soft-spreading bedding plants like Lobelias or Petunias, or subjects still more peculiarly suited for this purpose, such as the common Lycopodium denticulatum and Tradescantia discolor. Choice tender specimens of Tree ferns, etc., placed in dark shady dells, may be plunged to the rims of the pots in the turf or earth, and some graceful or bold trailing herb placed round the cavity so as to conceal it; and in this way such results may be attained as those indicated in the first plate, in those showing the Dimorphanthus, Musa Ensete, and in the frontispiece. The day will come when we shall be as anxious to avoid all formal twirlings in our gardens as we now are to have them perpetrated in them by landscape-gardeners of great repute for applying wall-paper or fire-shovel patterns to the surface of the reluctant earth, and when we shall no more think of tolerating in a garden such a scene as that shown in the preceding figure, than a landscape artist would tolerate it in a picture.

The old landscape-gardening dogma, which tells us we cannot have all the wild beauty of nature in our gardens, and may as well resign ourselves to the compass, and the level, and the defined daub of colour and pudding-like heaps of shrubs, had some faint force when our materials for gardening were few,[A] but considering our present rich and, to a great extent, unused stores from every clime, and from almost every important section of the vegetable kingdom, it is demonstrably false and foolish.

[A] "In gardening, the materials of the scene are few, and those few unwieldy, and the artist must often content himself with the reflection that he has given the best disposition in his power to the scanty and intractable materials of nature."-Allison.

To these observations on arrangement, etc., one good rule may be added:-Make your garden as distinct as possible from those of your

neighbours-which by no means necessitates a departure from the rules of good taste.

I wish particularly to call attention to the fine effects which may be secured, from the simplest and most easily obtained materials, by using some of our hardy trees and shrubs in the subtropical garden. Our object generally is to secure large and handsome types of leaves; and for this purpose we usually place in the open air young plants of exotic trees, taking them in again in autumn; and, perhaps, as we never see them but in a diminutive state, we often forget that, when branched into a large head in their native countries, they are not a whit more remarkable in foliage than many of the trees of our pleasure-grounds. Thus, if the well-known Paulownia imperialis were too tender to stand our winters, and if we were accustomed to see it only in a young and simple-stemmed condition and with large leaves, we should doubtless plant it out every summer as we do the Ferdinanda. There is no occasion whatever to resort to exotic subjects, while we can so easily obtain fine hardy subjects-which, moreover, may be grown by everybody and everywhere. By annually cutting down young plants of various hardy trees and shrubs, and letting them make a clean, simple-stemmed growth every year, we will, as a rule, obtain finer effects than can be got from tender ones. The Ailantus, for example, treated in this way, gives us as fine a type of pinnate leaf as can be desired. Nobody need place Astrapæa Wallichii in the open air, as I have seen done, so long as a simple-stemmed young plant of the Paulownia makes such a column of magnificent leaves. The delicately-cut leaves of the Gleditschias, borne on strong young stems, would be as pretty as those of any fern; and so in the case of various other hardy trees and shrubs. Persons in the coldest and least favourable parts of the country need not doubt of being able to obtain as fine types of foliage as they can desire, by selecting a dozen kinds of hardy trees and treating them in this way. What may be done in this way, in one case, is shown in the accompanying plate, representing a young plant of Ailantus, with its current year's shoot and leaves, standing gracefully in the midst of a bed of Cannas.

A few words may now be added about some types of vegetation which, though not included among what are commonly termed subtropical plants, may yet be judiciously used in combination with them, and go far to produce very charming...