"
It is such little gardens which have kept for us the Blue Primrose, the
highly fragrant Summer Roses (including Rose de Meaux, and the red and
copper Briar), countless beautiful varieties of Daffy-down-dillies, and all
the host of sweet, various and hardy flowers which are now returning, like
the Chippendale chairs, from the village to the hall.
It is still in cottage gardens chiefly that the Crown Imperial hangs
its royal head. One may buy small sheaves of it in the Taunton
market-place on early summer Saturdays. What a stately flower it is!
and, in the paler variety, of what an exquisite yellow! I always fancy
_Fritillaria Imperialis flava_ to be dressed in silk from the Flowery
Land--that robe of imperial yellow which only General Gordon and the
blood royal of China are entitled to wear!
"All is fine that is fit." And is the "bedding-out"
system--Ribbon-gardening--ever fit, and therefore ever fine? My
little friend, I am inclined to think that it sometimes is. For long
straight borders in parks and public promenades, for some terrace
garden on a large scale, viewed perhaps from windows at a considerable
distance, and, in a general way, for pleasure-grounds ordered by
professional skill, and not by an _amateur_ gardener (which, mark you,
being interpreted, is gardener _for love_!), the bedding-out style
_is_ good for general effect, and I think it is capable of prettier
ingenuities than one often sees employed in its use.
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