The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1881-03-11
Color in Gardens.

bright cOl0rs in plants has reached
America, and the Centennial grounds
showed our people what could be done
with masses of coleus, geraniums, arun-
dos, cannas and other high-colored
plants.
Yet even these, beautiful as they are
in their prime, cause for half the sum-
mer a colorless, disagreeable blot on the
lawn. Planted in June, they rarely COW
er the ground until August, and for the
intervening time the bed in which they
are planted is q mass of almost naked
earth. Before the middle of October
they succumb to the frost, and then for
eight months more they do nothing to
hide the bare earth in which they are
planted. Eight months of ugliness is
too high price to pay for two months
of beauty. Yet these bedding plants
have become the fashion, and fashion is
uncompromising in its demands. The
gardeners naturally encourage people to
buy them, because they bring q good
price and are easily propagated. Thus
the continued use of exotic plants for
bedding is likely to increase rather than
diminish, unless the taste is subjected to
rigorous criticism. The only remedy is
for men and women of true taste to in
sist on better example upon their own
premises and among their friends. They
should not inveigh against color, but
should persistently demand from their
gardeners permanent plants of color,
which would be beautiful for a large
part or for the whole of the year.
Few things are finer than q bed or
border of ivy contrasted with border
of the dwarf Eu0nyDaus rddicaaas. Then
there is sort of ivy with white and
green variegation, and the periwinkle,
with its pale blue flowers browning
dark evergreen leaves. The golden yew
and the procumbent yew, both ever
greens, one with rich dark foliage
and the other with luster of FURNISHED
gold, can be planted in masses, and kept
down to six or twelve inches. They can
also be pruned into globes, ovals, pyra-
mids, columns, or any desired form.
And then come the grand flowers, fawn
and orange, of the Bignonia grand fora,
blooming freely for many weeks. In
truth, all the vines can be treated as
bedding-plants if the knife be judiciously
used. l think that one of the most
striking things I have seen was COM
mon honeysuckle grown in fat bed,
the edges neatly trimmed, and the whole
surface covered with flowers. I saw an
other honeysuckle trained to stake
four feet high, and then allowed to fall
over, making a mound four feet high
and five feet in diameter. Few know
the capabilities of climbing plants for
great variety of form-for flat beds, for
mounds, for columns, for arches, for
cornices, for sides of buildings, or for
any other form that taste can devise.
I have applied my remarks to fiat
beds, in order to show that permanent
hardy plants with leaves and flowers of
high color could very properly take the
place of the present fashionable masses
of coleus, geraniums, etc. l would by
no means limit the use of these plants
to fat beds. True taste requires variety,
and these masses could be made to as
sumo various shapes and heights. Even
in the foliage of large trees there is suf-
ficient variety of tint to make a lawn
seem like large picture.-S. B. Par
sons, tn Harper's Magazine.