Introduction to the
Victorian Flower Garden (5)
From the 'Handy Book of the Flower-Garden' (1868) by David Thomson
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It is not by any means vain to hope that there are yet much grace and
elegance - we have no lack of colour - to be added to our parterres. Already something
that is at least suggestive has been attempted in a very few favoured localities. Some
plants which thrive best when strictly confined to our stoves and warm green-houses
have been grouped outdoors. To such efforts we owe much, and the observant cannot fail
to profit from whatever measure of success has attended them. There are, however,
few places in the United Kingdom where it would be anything short of hopeless to attempt
outdoor decoration with such plants as are most at home in a tropical climate.
Notwithstanding the insurmountable obstacle which climate throws in
the way of introducing sub-tropical decorations into our flower-gardens, I consider
it very desirable, and surely not beyond ultimate attainment, to work into a hardier
class of plants, resembling, in grace and elegance, those tender plants which can only
be seen in real health and beauty in plant-stoves. Hardy plants, such as I have referred
to - or rather the multiplication and use of them - are one of the greatest desiderata
of the modern flower-garden. A most desirable and attractive feature is being added
to the arrangement of beds and borders by the introduction of the order of plants that I
have indicated, and very similar effects to those that can be produced by subtropical
plants are attainable by a liberal use of many half-hardy and nearly hardy plants
already enumerated in the nurseryman's list.
Greenhouse Dracaenas, Yuccas, Aloes, Cordylines, Agaves, Grevilleas,
Cycads, Araucarias, etc. etc., may be mentioned as a few among many indicative of the
order of plants for which I am pleading, and which I hope will one day become popular
for this purpose. As centres, starting-points, panels, vase plants, etc., surely it is
not hopeless to recruit from such ranks. A dozen, a score, forty, fifty, or a hundred
such plants, according to the capabilities and extent of the place, would add greatly
to the beauty of many a garden. The annual housing and plunging of these would not
require much more space nor labour than those plants which they are designed to displace.
And there cannot be a question as to the wisdom of curtailing, in a measure, the
prevailing weight of colour to make way for plants with graceful foliage. The selection
of such plants need not be confined to such as require protection of any sort in winter.
Many of our perfectly hardy shrubs and trees can be used in a young state with very
striking effect, and I hope the training of such in special ways for this purpose will
one day be well worth the attention of nurserymen. With the introduction of more graceful
and ornamental foliaged plants, a striking improvement may be expected on the present
brilliant order of flower-gardening.
There are other considerations which are especially calculated to work
improvement. The first of these consists of a more intimate and widely diffused knowledge
on the part of those who are the proprietors of gardens, of the vast increase of labour
which has arisen in consequence of preparing and cultivating so many tender plants as are
demanded by modern summer flower-gardening, and all without anything like corresponding
resources in the way of houses and pits for propagating and growing such numbers of plants.
The extent to which this is the case is but little thought of by proprietors, and the
energy and resources of the present generation of gardeners are wonderfully exemplified
in the production of tens of thousands of plants, with the most unsuitable amount of
accommodation.
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