Among conifers we find many subjects of the most exquisite grace, and of a beautiful free and pointed habit, which it is most desirable we should have associated with vegetation more distinguished for brilliancy than grace. They are in many cases as elegantly chiselled and dissected as the finest fern, and it is difficult to find more beautiful masses of verdure than such plants as Retinospora plumosa and R. obtusa display when well developed; they are simply invaluable for those who use them with taste. Apart altogether from our want of a more elegantly diversified surface in the flower-garden—the best and most practical way to meet which is by the use of such plants as these and neat and elegant young specimens of such things as Thujopsis borealis—there is, in many British gardens, a great gulf between the larger tree and shrub vegetation and the humbler colouring material, which most will admit should be filled up, and there is nothing more suitable for it than the many graceful conifers we now possess. Much as conifers are grown with us, how few people have any idea of their great value as ornamental plants for the very choicest position in a garden! We are sometimes too apt to put them in what is called their “proper place,”—or, at all events, too far from the seat of interest to thoroughly enjoy them in winter, when the beauty of their form and their exquisite verdure are best seen. If the dwarfer and choicer conifers were tastefully disposed in and immediately around a flower-garden not altogether spoiled by a profusion of beds for masses of colour, that flower-garden could hardly fail to look as well in winter as in summer; in fact I have seen places where, from rather close association of the more elegant types, the best kind of winter garden was made. Our efforts must tend to prevent a desert-like aspect at any time of the year; and to this end nothing can help us more than a judicious selection of conifers. Almost every beauty of form is theirs. They possess a permanent dignity and interest, always occupying the ground and embellishing it, displaying distinct tints of ever-grateful green in spring and summer, waving majestically before the gusts of autumn, and beautiful when bearing on their deepest green the snows of winter. Some of the more suitable kinds are named in a list at the end of this book, but the graceful pines are so commonly grown that few will have any difficulty in securing proper sorts.
The Gourd tribe is capable, if properly used, of adding much remarkable beauty and character to
the garden; yet, as a rule, it is seldom used. There is no natural order more wonderful in the variety and singular shapes of its fruit than that to which the melon, cucumber, and vegetable marrow belong. From the writhing Snake-cucumber, which hangs down four or five feet long from its stem, to the round enormous giant pumpkin or gourd, the grotesque variation, both in colour and shape and size, is marvellous. There are some pretty little gourds which do not weigh more than half an ounce when ripe; while, on the other hand, there are kinds with fruit almost large enough to make a sponge bath. Eggs, bottles, gooseberries, clubs, caskets, folded umbrellas, balls, vases, urns, small balloons,—all have their likenesses in the gourd family. Those who have seen a good collection of them will be able to understand Nathaniel Hawthorne’s enthusiasm about these quaint and graceful vegetable forms when he says: “A hundred gourds in my garden were worthy, in my eyes at least, of being rendered indestructible in marble. If ever Providence (but I know it never will) should assign me a superfluity of gold, part of it shall be expended for a service of plate, or most delicate porcelain, to be wrought into the shape of gourds gathered from vines which I will plant with my own hands. As dishes for containing vegetables they would be peculiarly appropriate. Gazing at them, I felt that by my agency something worth living for had been done. A new substance was born into the world. They were real and tangible existences, which the mind could seize hold of and rejoice in.” Of course the climate of New England is much better suited for fully developing the gourd tribe than ours, but it is satisfactory to know that they may be readily and beautifully grown in this country.