There cannot be a question that this method of planting the flower-garden in groups and masses, is productive of by far the most splendid effect. In England, where flower-gardens are carried to their greatest perfection, the preference in planting is given to exotics which blossom constantly throughout the season, and which are kept in the green-house during winter, and turned out in the beds in the early part of the season, where they flower in the greatest profusion until frost; as Fuchsias, Salvias, Lobelias, Scarlet Geraniums, etc., etc.* This mode can be adopted here where a small green-house or frame is kept. In the absence of these, nearly the same effect may be produced by choosing the most showy herbaceous plants, perennial and biennial, alternating them with hardy bulbs, and the finer species of annuals.
(* In many English residences, the flower-garden is maintained in never-fading brilliancy by almost daily supplies from what is termed the reserve garden. This is a small garden out of sight, in which a great number of duplicates of the species in the flower-garden are grown in pots plunged in beds. As soon as a vacuum is made in the flower-garden by the fading of any flowers, the same are immediately removed and their places supplied by fresh plants just ready to bloom, from the pots in the reserve garden. This, which is the ultimatum of refinement in flower-gardening, has never, to our knowledge, been attempted in this country.)
