This section is from the book "What England Can Teach Us About Gardening", by Wilhelm Miller. Also available from Amazon: What England Can Teach Us About Gardening.
So, then, we have a sure principle to guide us in bringing the spirit of tropical beauty to the North. We are not to pick out the showiest plants of the tropics and transport them bodily, for they fear the frost. Their faces, so to speak, blanch at the thought of it and, therefore, they can never look entirely happy or seem at home in our gardens. The true way is to search out the hardy members of each family that plays a great part in the tropics. These will look at home both summer and winter, for even when they are bare they will give us some beauty of outline, branching, bark, bud, or berry. In the case of herbs there will be only two or three months gained, but in the case of the trees and shrubs we shall get a dignity from their stature which we can never have from the tropical plants that are set outdoors for the summer.
 
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