FLOWER GARDENING.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1948, 22 May 1880, Page 3

FLOWER GARDENING.

This subject has recently come in for its full share of attention, and in several notices that have appeared in relation to the style f hat now and for a considerable period has been in fashion, there has been the usual wide divergence of opinion that generally comes to the surface upon almost any gardening question which is discussed. On the one side are ranged those who look upon the modern geometrical flower garden, with all its intricacy of design and radiancy of colour, as the culminating point in gardening jirt; on the opposite are those who aver that it is a degradation of the term to admit of its being applied to anything so opposed to the natural in form and the requirements of refined-taste in colour ; and there are many who take their stand at different points between these two extremes. All that has been advanced on either side during the present discussion is little, if anything, more than what has been said over and over again before. Those who advocate the simple beauty of the less pretentious kinds of hardy plants, the stately aspect and limitless forms and colours of the more conspicuous species and varieties, the lengthened succession of bloom, and the interest attached to something or other coming on nearly the whole year round, in a garden where hardy plants abound, undoubtedly have the strongest points on their side of the argument; but opposed to these there is the old set-off about the untidy appearance presented through the season when once the firßt spring plants begin to lie down. And I think it is a good deal owing to this, in reality false, notion about untidiness in gardening matters, that hardy plants have been depreciated by many people ; in fact, an attempt is made to realise a kind of completeness with the plants that furnish the garden similar to that of the carpets on the floors, the paper and pictures on the walls, and the chairs and other artioles that go to make up the furniture of the interior of the dwelling ; forgetful that there is not, nor ever can be, a permanent and complete appearance with an assemblage of living plants, their vital energies ever working out change. Neither would Buch an appearance be desirable even if it were possible. I think the Bpirit that has given birth to the present flower-garden system is easily identified, and its working, although perhaps more apparent in the matter of flowers than in any other departments of the garden, is by no means confined to them alone. People possessing gardens and plants are actuated by very different motives. One individual has a garden, and loves the plants and flowers growing in it, cultivating and cherishing them for their own sakes, with an affection they are not undeserving of, as seen by the way in which they flourish. He is satisfied with each and all in their place and season —with the autumn decline as with the vernal progress ; and with him, next to the pleasure derivable from a plant in its full array of bloom is that of seeing it complete its growth, the sere leaf betokening its period of rest, to again bud forth with increased vigour and promise. This is very different from the feeling which, I fear, a good many of those who have gardens are imbued with, who would follow the fashion of the time, whatever it might happen to be; and, although often fleeting in their partiality to this or that particular plant or flower, are, like many weeds, terribly dee-rooted in some of their likings—ho much so that, however convincing the arguments brought to bear on the question, they will cling to the fashion as long as it lasts. These, I have no doubt, will be the greatest obstacle in thwarting the adoption of a more natural style of gardening in its relation to outdoor flowering and associated plants. So far as concerns the kind of plants, of which modern flower gardening is composed, there is not one that could be objected to if used in some place or other where it could be appropriately introduced. There is no legitimate objection to a breadth of yellow colour produced by a mass of calceolarias or yellow pansies in summer, more than there is to a like extent of daffodils or Oheiranthus marshalii in spring, or the blue of a broad patch of lobelia or verbena later in the season after that of blue crocuses or Aubriotia, or white verbenas and white zanale pelargoniums to follow Arabis and candytuft; and in like manner through the whole list of bedding plants. It is the combined formality in the diepasition of the plants, want of sufficient relief in their height of growth and general character, accompanied with the absence of freedom in outline inseparable from the geometrical and other nearly allied forms of flower garden now so general, that is so objectionable. Even those who are the most uncompromising adversaries of the system cannot find any fault with the plants üßed, but rather with their misuse.

The present is not the first time that this view of the subject has been urged, as also the desirability of employing the half-hardy subjects of the flower garden in combination with very rcany hardy things, to the mutual advantage in the appearance of both; and this appears to bo now more generally admitted.

I cannot help thinking that, if the objections of those who have spoken out against the present style had been solely confined to the arrangement of the plants, and not to the plants themselves, they would have carried more weight. The objections to the style of flower gardens in summer are equally present in mOBt of the arrangements of spring plants, with the single exception that the spring beddera aro more simple and subdued in colour, and they afford few or none that grow to any height, so as to relieve the objectionable flat even surface.

With respect to the great amount of labour modern flower-gardening absorbs—and of this moat important element there are few placss where there is enough at command to prevent the robbing of every other department—it is occasionally admitted, but not very often, that it has done more to bring about indifferent fruit cultivation under glass, and equally unsatisfactory kitchen gardening, than anything else that could well be devised ; as, come what would, the flower garden must bo attended to. There is one thing that may with truth bo said in the matter : whatever gardeners have done to bring about the present fashion, a good many of the craft have

had, and are still having, a full share of atonement to make; for the flower garden in many a plaoe sees the gardener at his wit's end from one end of the year to the other to keep it up to the required mark, and other things passable, with often not a hand more than was employed before anything in the shape of a flower garden existed about the plaoe.