A great deal is now done with simple, hardy flowers, which give just as good an effect as more elaborate and expensive bedding. Roses in the show beds will do well for two or even three years; with a few annuals between they make charming effects. In Finsbury Park, the dark red roses with Canterbury bells, and fuchsias with a ground of alyssum, were effective and simple. In some parks the spring plants will thrive all through the winter. Beds of white Arabis with pink tulips between; forget-me-nots with white tulips; mixed collections of auriculas, that dear old-fashioned “bear’s ears,” put in about the end of October, make a little show all the winter, and produce a mass of colour in spring. There is still room for improvement in the direction of the planting, but of late years the war waged against the monopoly of calceolarias, geraniums, and blue lobelias has, fortunately, had its effect in a marked degree on the London Parks, municipal as well as royal. There is apt to be a great uniformity in the selection of plants, more especially among the trees and bushes. The future should always be borne in mind in planting, and alas! that is not always the case. Anything that will grow quickly is often put in, whereas a little patience and a much finer effect would be the result in the end. Privet grows faster than holly, but can the two results be compared? There is a very fine old elm avenue in Ravenscourt; trees which the planter never saw in perfection, but which many generations have since enjoyed. But will the avenue of poplars in Finsbury Park have such a future? After thirty-five years’ growth they are considerable trees, but how long will they last? The plane does grow remarkably well, there is no denying, but is it necessary for that reason to exclude almost every other tree? Ash trees thrive surprisingly. Some of the oaks take kindly to London, yet how few are planted. Richard Jefferies, that most delightful of writers on nature, bemoans the lack of English trees in the suburban gardens of London, and the same may be said of the parks to some extent. “Go round the entire circumference of Greater London,” he writes, “and find the list ceaselessly repeated. There are acacias, sumachs, cedar deodaras, araucarias, laurels, planes, beds of rhododendrons, and so on.” “If, again, search were made in these enclosures for English trees and English shrubs, it would be found that none have been introduced.” It would be even more charming in a London Park than a suburban garden to plant some of the delights of our English country, such as thorns, crab apples, elder, and wild roses, with horse-chestnuts, and hazel. What can be more beautiful than birches at all times of the year? That they grow readily, their well-washed white stems in Hyde Park testify. Birds, too, love the native trees, and some of the songsters, which till lately were plentiful in many parks, might return to build if thus encouraged.