It is quite evident that, in most of the old formal gardens, glass
accommodation has never to any great extent been considered necessary.
Yet there is nothing of more importance to the gardener in charge of a
large Topiary garden than plenty of glass accommodation for storing the
various bedding plants during winter and spring. In former years both
the persons who owned the Topiary gardens, and the gardeners as well,
seem to have depended to a great extent on the different varieties of
annuals for the embellishment of their gardens. But annuals in a garden
such as the one I am speaking of, never have the same effect among the
yews as the more bright and showy bedding plants. I quite agree with a
great many people in their contention that glass structures are
altogether out of place in the Topiary garden. But provision should be
made for them in some way or other, and as a rule some place can be
found for the erection of a few houses without clashing with the other
features of the garden.
If the garden has been laid out on a large scale, and contains a
quantity of large beds, as regards the work of arranging and deciding
what each bed is to be planted with, the person who is responsible will
have to be guided by circumstances to a certain extent according to the
accommodation that is already at hand, or is to be provided for the
raising of bedding plants.
In every garden, and especially in the Topiary garden, the beds should
be so arranged that they will yield as far as possible a continual show
of bloom for as many months of the year as flowers will bloom in the
garden. A continual supply of bloom for the longest possible time is the
principal object to be aimed at. Of course in the arrangement of the
beds it will be necessary to plant some of them with herbaceous plants;
others may be planted with roses; as both roses and herbaceous plants
look well in any garden. But in the using of perennial plants of any
kind, I would strongly recommend that they should be planted more in the
background and in large borders, instead of in the more important beds
in the garden. These last should be reserved for bedding plants, as no
matter whether roses, or any other kind of plants, be used, the same
brilliant and desirable effect can never be obtained as is to be had
from the more showy and more easily massed bedding plants. In the
planting of herbaceous or any variety of plants, exceptional care should
be taken to keep the plants far enough away from the trees, so as to
avoid all injurious effects from the summer’s growth coming in contact
with the yews. If the practice of planting close up to the trees is
followed, on purpose to avoid bare patches in the borders, the result
will be disastrous to the more important part of the garden, viz., the
Topiary work. But as bare patches are always unsightly in the border,
they should be avoided as far as possible by planting the very dwarf
growing herbaceous plants in close proximity to the trees. It is a plan
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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