Few large cities can boast such a rich variety of gardens as Paris. The picturesque rubs shoulders with the geometric, the most modern designs stand side by side with the ancient layouts and manners, and exotic species have been so well acclimatized that they have become commonplace. This is without forgetting the innumerable private gardens, sometimes reduced to a window box on a balcony, sometimes vast and secret. Such is the prodigy that a two-thousand-year-old culture has managed to accomplish.