Jardin des Plantes

“ The avenue on the right is bounded by the school of botany and the hothouses. Behind the botanical school a long avenue of chestnut trees leads by the side of the bears’ den from the hothouses to the quay. Between this avenue and the Rue Cuvier are the menagerie, the school of fruit trees, the galleries of anatomy and anthropology, the amphitheatre, the Administration, and, at the top of the garden, behind the hothouses, the labyrinth and the Belvedere. A number of exotic trees have been planted and cultivated in the Jardin des Plantes, thence to be transplanted and naturalised in France. ”

“ In 1893 he was appointed professor of mineralogy at the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, and in 1896 director of the mineralogical laboratory in the École des Hautes Études. He paid especial attention to minerals connected with volcanic phenomena and igneous rocks, to the effects of metamorphism, and to mineral veins, in various parts of the world, notably in the Pyrenees. ”

“ The flower garden also cries for proper raiment, for though the original lines have been preserved and the soil put in a satisfactory shape, in lieu of the hardy plants and old-time favourites that belong to such a place, in emergency we were reduced, last summer, to the quick-growing but monotonous bedding plants for fillers. Can you imagine anything more jarring and inconsistent than cannas, castor-oil beans, coleus, and nasturtiums in a prim setting of box? ”

“ Ornamental plants, or those commonly cultivated in flower gardens, will not stock the school gardens contemplated by the committee. Native wild plants, such as ferns, grasses, asters, goldenrods, violets, native shrubs, and economic plants, such as grains, vegetable roots, and leguminous and cucurbitaceous plants, must be the stock of the gardens. ”

“ For a centre to a circular bed nothing can surpass it in the summer and autumn flower-garden, while numerous other charming uses may be made of it. Not the least happy of these would be to plant a tuft of it on the green turf, in a warm spot, near a group of choice shrubs, to help, with many other things named, to fill up the gap that is now nearly everywhere observed between ordinary fleeting flowers and the taller tree and shrub vegetation. It is better to leave the plant in the ground, in a permanent position, than to take it up annually. ”

“ I do not envy any one who has only the great, solemn, stiff flowers of the prize-show variety. An armful of the hardy garden ones, with their delicious odour, is worth a green-house full of the unnatural things which are the professional gardener’s pride. When you can keep twenty or more vases filled from your own garden with these last blossoms of the year, in all their lovely colours, and not miss one of them from the plants, you will agree with me that they are the only kind to raise. ”

“ Then, too, each year the intelligent gardener will arrange new combinations, grow new varieties of plants, and aim after a perfection which he can never hope to reach.
But the garden has no less also a scientific interest. Fresh species of plants are continually enriching our flower-beds, and botanists are constantly searching the wildest and most remote corners of the world on behalf of the English stove-house, conservatory, and garden. They endure untold hardships, and risk many dangers, if only they may secure some new treasure. ”

“ Wherever they are grown as isolated tufts, in small groups, or in small beds, it will be best not to take them up oftener than every second or third year. These noble plants would also adorn the conservatory, which is often as devoid of any dignified vegetation as the unhappy flower-gardens which are seen all over the country. ”

“ Large or small, a greenhouse garden, like any other, should be designed carefully and never planted until you have the plan firmly in mind. Each plant should be given room in relation to all the others, and not merely at planting time but with maturity time in mind. Allow plenty of space for spreaders to spread and creepers to creep; and make sure every climber has its support. And, of course, plants in close proximity should have compatible cultural preferences in soil, moisture, light, and the like. ”

“ With few exceptions these plants have never been grown out of botanic gardens, many of them being thought too coarse for the mixed border. They are, nevertheless, remarkably beautiful both in flower and foliage, and many effects never before seen in gardens may be obtained by massing them under trees in shrubberies or copses, as a rule allowing one species to establish itself in each place and assume an easy natural boundary of its own. ”

“ The collection of orange trees cannot be matched in any country where these trees do not grow naturally; the number is about six hundred, the largest trunk is about fifteen [39] inches in diameter, and the age of the most ancient of these trees exceeds three centuries.
The Jardin Potager, or kitchen garden, is of fifty acres, divided into about five or six and twenty small gardens, of one, two, or three acres, walled round, both for shelter to the plants, and for training fruit trees against. ”

“ Every season should supply new flowers to the conservatory. In the spring, potted bulbs will make a gay beginning, and if orchids are grown in the stoves the bulbs will be followed closely by some of the most resplendent of the family. As the season advances the greenhouse will supply pelargoniums, heaths, herbaceous calceolarias, and specimen petunias, and in autumn the pits will prove their usefulness by providing a glorious display of chrysanthemums. ”

“ Flower Garden and Greenhouse.—Window and greenhouse plants require more water and ventilation. Due attention must be paid to shifting well-rooted plants into larger pots; and, if space is desired, many kinds of hardier plants can be safely put out in cold frames. Towards the end of the month it may be necessary slightly to shade the glass of the greenhouse. All herbaceous plants and hardy shrubs may be planted in the garden. The covering of leaves or litter should be taken off bulbs and tender plants that were covered up for winter, so that the beds can be lightly forked and raked. ”

“ Well might a portion of city parks and public gardens be devoted to the raising of such plants as are in demand for botanical instruction. The farmer's boy or girl, having at his disposal various kinds of land and being able to gain intimate knowledge of the conditions best suited to the different wild flowers which would not flourish in a city park, can experiment with their cultivation, and in time find the raising of native plants a useful and fascinating employment. ”

“ The general herbage of the park, like that of the unmanured plots, consists of some fifty species of plants, including sundry grasses, clovers, docks, umbellifers and other plants commonly found in such situations. In the several manured plots a change is observable, sometimes slight, at other times vast, and the change does not show itself so much in the superior luxuriance of any one plant, or in the starved condition of another, as it does in the more or less complete exclusion of certain plants, and in their replacement by others. ”

“ Although not exactly belonging to the very free–growing and extremely hardy genera of plants recommended for the wild garden, they are so free in many soils that they might with confidence be recommended for that purpose, and our sketch shows a picturesque group of them planted in this way. It would be delightful if people having country seats would study more the effects to be realised from certain types of plants. For instance, a well and tastefully placed group of these Flame Flowers would for a long time in autumn be a most effective feature in the landscape of a country seat ”

“ A long and happy day commenced with a stroll through the botanic gardens, parallel with which runs, on one side, a splendid oak avenue just now in all the vivid freshness of its young spring leaves. The gardens are beautifully kept, and are valuable as affording a sort of experimental nursery in which new plants and trees can be brought up on trial and their adaptability to the soil and climate ascertained. ”

“ The number of nursery collections of hardy plants being now more numerous than they were a few years ago, getting the plants is not so difficult as it once was. The sources of supply are these nurseries; seed houses, who have lists of hardy plant seeds—many kinds may be easily raised from seed; botanic gardens, in which many plants are grown that hitherto have not found a place in our gardens, and were not fitted for any mode of culture except that herein suggested; orchards and cottage gardens in pleasant country places may supply desirable things from time to time ”

“ I recall particularly two Italian gardens, perfectly laid out by landscape gardeners, but which amounted to nothing because the planting was insufficient,—here a Phlox, there a Lily, then a Rose, with perhaps a Larkspur or a Marigold, all rigidly set out in single plants far apart, with nothing in masses, and no colour effects.
To attain success in growth, as well as in effect, plants must be so closely set that when they are developed no ground is to be seen. If so placed, their foliage shades the earth, and moisture is retained. ”

“ When it is considered that all the species will grow anywhere—in any hedgerow or lane or byeway, or among coarse grass, or in a copse, or under the shrubs, in places usually abandoned to common weeds, there is no reason why numbers of them should not be rescued from the oblivion of the botanic garden. ”

“ It is not alone as component parts of large ribbon-borders and in such positions that these grand plants are useful, but in almost any part of the garden. Springing up as a bold, close group on the green turf, and away from brilliant surroundings, they are more effective than when associated{202} with bedding plants; and of course many such spots may be found for them near the margins of the shrubberies in most pleasure-grounds. It is in an isolated group, flaming up amid the verdure of trees and shrubs and grass, that their dignified aspect and brilliant colour are seen to best advantage. ”

“ Woodsy wild gardens can also have basic, permanent plantings—seedling evergreens, moss, foliage plants such as small ferns, rattlesnake plantain, and pipsissewa—through which spring-blooming squirrel corn, hepatica, and spring beauty can push up their flowers. ”

“ The general idea is that all the soil shall be concealed, not necessarily at the moment of planting, but at the end of one or two seasons' growth. Unless you are a collector, variety is of little importance. The main thing is that there shall be beauty as a whole, a few marked seasonal effects of color with massed bloom and some green the year round; the garden must never be bare at any time, as nature will show you. Plants clustered here and [Pg 27] single there is a good planting rule. ”

“ In nearly all our gardens we have a great deal of surface wholly wasted—wide spaces in the shrubbery frequently dug over in the winter, plantations, grass–walks, hedgerows, rough banks, slopes, etc., which hitherto have grown only grass and weeds, and on these a rich garden flora may be grown. Hundreds of the more vigorous and handsome herbaceous plants that exist will thrive in these places and do further good in exterminating weeds and preventing the need of digging. ”

“ There are greenhouses to shelter the rarer and more sensitive plants—to shelter them not, as in our hothouses, from the cold, but, on the contrary, from the heat and the withering rays of the sun. Here too is one of the finest collections of orchids in existence, tended by an ancient Javanese gardener who is as proud of his curious blooms as a trainer is of his race horses or a collector of his porcelains. ”

“ There are several species hardy and well suited for flower-garden purposes, and, more advantageous still, distinct from each other. The effect afforded by them, when well developed, is equal to that of any hothouse plant that we can venture in the open air for the summer, while they are green and ornamental at all seasons. ”

“ In all districts it may be placed in the open garden in summer with fine effect, the rim of the pots plunged level with, or a little below, the surface, and the plants either isolated on the turf, in the centre of a bed of flowering plants, or grouped with other fine-leaved subjects. In the conservatory it is one of the most effective and graceful subjects at all seasons, and is of very easy culture in rich sandy loam. ”

“ They have not the grandeur of the Botanical Gardens, though they display an even more perennial greenness and a certain wild charm of their own, and the lawns are not so smoothly kept, while in places the grass grows deliciously lush and high. ”

“ On many lawns, spring gardens might be formed by planting some spring flowering plants that finish their growth before the trees are in leaf. Another advantage of such positions is, that the foliage of the tree prevents any coarser plants taking possession of the ground, and therefore these little spring plants have the ground to themselves, and wander into natural little groups in the moss and grass, sometimes covering the surface with a sheet of blossoms. ”

“ A part of the arboretum is more particularly devoted to this kind of decoration, and will eventually form a very wild wood and wild garden, where the Poet’s Narcissus may be found among Sweet Briers, Lilacs, and many kinds of fragrant–flowering shrubs and vigorous perennials. While carrying out the scheme of wild gardening, pure and simple, that is to say, the naturalisation of foreign hardy plants, opportunity has been taken to establish beautiful native kinds where they do not happen to be present in sufficient abundance. ”

“ Here they planted for coolness and shade, vines and trees, laid out their grounds with walks, paved like mosaic with vari-colored stones. In these gardens no semi-tropical plants, such as abounded on every side, were planted. It has always been man's way when warring with the wilderness that lay beyond his door, to gather into the enclosure flowers and plants that had been dear to his heart in his far-away native land, to re-establish the atmosphere of his old home in new surroundings. ”