Besides the spring garden, there is in some places the Semi-tropical garden, and in others the Alpine garden. No one has done more than has Mr. W. Robinson[5] to call up an interest in the broad-foliaged plants which are the chief ornament in the gardens of Paris, and in the delicate tufts of flowers which nestle in the crevices of our rockeries. But there is much still to be done. It is, after all, only occasionally that either Semi-tropical or Alpine gardening is to be seen in any perfection. For the former, Battersea and Victoria Parks are extremely good, and for the latter the Messrs. Backhouse’s nursery, near York, has a deserved reputation. Many very handsome semi-tropical plants are all but hardy, and require at most only a protection during the winter months. The canna was known to Gerard and to Cowley, and needs no more care than a dahlia. The Pampas grass and _Arundo conspicua_ are perfectly hardy. The _Arundinaria falcata_ is rather more tender, but unless it flowers, when, like the American aloe, it will die, it will generally spring up from the root, even when its long canes themselves are cut by the frost. The aralia, ricinus, and others, are no doubt safer for being housed during the winter, and then plunged, either as centres for flower-beds, or as separate shrubs in the outside garden. Nothing gives greater character to any garden than the occasional introduction of plants like these. They are now indeed all the more needed since the old plan of having orangeries has so nearly disappeared. And yet how well worth the trouble—the very little trouble—that it cost, the orangery always was. Nothing could be more stately than a broad walk, along the sides of which were ranged the orange-trees, each in its huge tub, and each fruit-bearing and flowering together. And with the orange-trees would be the white-blossoming myrtles and the _Clethra arborea_, with its scented sprays, like lily-of-the-valley.