And it seems to me that if landscape architects and those who create gardens had more of this feeling we would hear less about matching colors and being shocked over dreadful discords in vegetation. Nature violates the rules on every hand. What are you going to do with a tree or shrub that bears green leaves and masses of purple flowers, the very worst of discord? This is just what one of our finest Bauhinias does; so does the well-known Bougainvillea, - yet these are both generally admired.

We are told that a certain class of plants is taboo, that we must not under any circumstances use the Crotons, Acalyphas, Pandanus or anything that has showy, variegated foliage. I want to lift my voice against this. In the cold and dreary north, where winter prevails for half the year, where fogs and cloudy skies are the regular thing during much of the rest of it, such plants may be out of place, and somber conifers and orderly greens may be the proper thing.

But Florida is a land of illimitable light and glory, where the sun shines in splendor nearly every day throughout the livelong year, where there is no winter and the forces of nature are always active. Everything shows the effect of this splendid light and heat power; the atmosphere is soft and brilliant; all animate life puts on brighter colors than it does in a cold climate; all nature is simply bubbling over with life. These gorgeously colored plants were developed in the tropics; they are as much a part of the general scheme as are the bright feathers of parrots and peacocks or the noble leaves of palms. In my judgment they may to a reasonable extent, be mingled with other vegetation.

The following quotation which bears directly on this subject is taken from "How to Lay Out a Garden" by Edward Kemp, an English gardener of the highest standing. "By a due admixture of different sorts of plants, variety may be additionally realized. The habit and character of trees and shrubs exhibit a wonderful amount of variation. Some of them, indeed, possess unusually striking characteristics, and assume a most peculiar garb. But there is something of difference; and little peculiarities show themselves to advantage in a small place. The selection of plants for a garden should therefore comprise all the best and most showy sorts that can be procured, or for which there is proper room and a suitable situation. And these should be well mixed together, though not to the exclusion of the practice of grouping particular kinds. To throw the various tribes of plants into masses, according to their natural affinities, as is sometimes recommended for arboretums, while it is destructive of all variety under the most favorable conditions, is quite out of the question in small gardens." This was written in 1850 and whatever was beautiful then is beautiful today and will be in a thousand years from now, - yes, forever.

Nature continually produces the most violent discords of color. We find in any considerable collection of plants those whose blossoms and foliage are in decided discord and if we were to combine these colors in art they would be hideous, but nature can combine them and they look all right. In a fine sunset we see nearly every color and the same is true in the rainbow or an autumn forest yet no one finds fault with any of these.

Why should we not condemn all plants with showy flowers or striking leaves, the gorgeous beds of annuals, the Chinese Hibiscus or the palms? It is well to be careful when we set plants close to buildings or walls for in that case we are mingling art and nature, and the same is true when planting a formal garden, the latter being more a work of art than of nature. I do not want to defy the laws of good taste but I would, in most cases, subordinate them to those of nature. In writing what I have done on this most important subject I have registered the solemn convictions of an old man who has loved all these dear things with a deep devotion since he was old enough to know his right hand from his left.

There are some plants which will not do well in the full sunlight, for example, Thunbergia erecta, Dracaena godseffiana and many of the palms, and I have specified these in the catalogue.

One may produce excellent effects by planting palms or other plants with striking foliage against a background of hammock or other tall trees and the bamboos look well in such situations. Bamboos or palms look well when planted as isolated specimens where they can have plenty of room, and when they get up so that they cut the sky line the effect is indescribably beautiful.