230 



JAEDINIERES AND EDGINGS. 



BT SHIELET HIBBEED. 



This has been one of the best seasons we 

 have had for many years past for trans- 

 planting evergreens and making improve- 

 ments, owing to the absence of heat, and a 

 pretty continuous fall of rain. Evergreens 

 planted since August have not sliown the 

 slightest indications of the change, and 

 will get settled so soon and securely as to 

 start next spring as if nothing had hap- 

 pened to them. Those wlio have not yet 

 begun their planting should begin at once, 

 while the ground is warm and moist. Gret 

 in evergreens and Americans first, and 

 then go to work with deciduous trees and 

 shrubs of every kind ; for at the end of 

 October, fruit trees, roses, and other 

 things, the removal of which is iisually 

 deferred till they have shed their leaves, 

 really do better if taken up while a mode- 

 rate amount of leaf remains on them, un- 

 less the ground happens to be dry and the 

 wind in the east, when it would be better 

 to wait to save them from hurtful exhaus- 

 tion. The probabilities are that we shall 

 have westerly winds and plenty of at- 

 mospheric moisture for the next two 

 mouths and every tree moved within 

 that period will have warm feet and a 

 moist head, and whatever fails after mov- 

 ing may be reckoned to have been care- 

 lessly taken up or carelessly planted, be- 

 cause the elements are altogether favour- 

 able. The folly of delay will be painfully 

 evidenced hereafter, and wherever the state 

 of the ground admits of it — barring 

 dahlias, chrysanthemums, and bedders 

 left out to tlie last moment — whatever 

 alterations are intended should be com- 

 menced at once ; first, the planting of all 

 large subjects of a woody kind, then, as 

 the weather grows more chilly, such 

 other work as will do a man good by 

 keeping his blood in healthy circulation. 



There are two great faults common to 

 English gardens — the general flatness of 

 the ground, and the absence of architec- 

 tural embellishments. Some of the best 

 terrace gardens, where boundary lines in 

 stone are esseiatial features, are positively 

 poor in this respect ; and people get to say 

 that sculpture is expensive, and that the 

 climate is unsuitable, whereas the very 

 opposite may be stated broadly as the 

 truth. The true principles of taste in 

 gardening are not sulRciently understood, 

 else we should never see, as we do too 

 often, fine stone vases in proximity to 



crooked apple-trees, and rough bark bas- 

 kets facing Grecian porticoes ; a mixture 

 of the artistic, the rural, and the rustic is 

 painful to an educated eye, and no source 

 of instruction or real pleasure to the eye 

 that is uneducated. That excellent motto 

 ought to be inscribed on all our garden 

 books, and over many a garden gate, " The 

 garden is an extension of the house." It 

 would set people thinking, and instead of 

 planting a hollow pollard filled with ferns 

 beside the entry, or under the drawing- 

 room windows, they would discover that 

 rugged forms do not harmonize with for- 

 mal lines, and the shape of the house 

 would have some influence on the shape 

 of the garden in contiguity with it. If 

 Sir Joseph Paxton had adopted the 

 method of thousands of folks who take 

 credit for possessing taste in such matters, 

 he would have had the lower lake and 

 all its oolitic and post-diluvian monsters 

 grimly ensconced where now the noble 

 tei-race steps lead the way first to a land 

 of flowers and architectural elegancies, 

 next to scenes made up of lawn and shrub 

 and water, and next to bosky wildernesses 

 and the wildness of nature, where the 

 megatherium and his fossihferous brethren 

 are properly at home. If all goes well, 

 grautmg money, wisdom, and no mishaps, 

 we are to have an architectural garden at 

 Kensington Gore ; and if that be well 

 I done there will spring up a taste which 

 I ought indeed to be in high feather at this 

 very moment, for garden arcliitecture and 

 good masonry will be deemed of as much 

 importance as good trees and good grass 

 and good flowers. If we were to proceed 

 on the plan of the great old Italian fami- 

 lies in constructing terraces and balus- 

 trades and alcoves, we might whisper about 

 expense and cUmate. Karely do we see 

 the snowy marble exposed to the frosts, the 

 damps, andthe four winds of heaven, submit- 

 ting its sculptured tracery — "the blossom- 

 ing of dead stone into the beauty of eternal 

 flowers "—to the rude influences which in 

 this non-Italian climate, and this age of 

 coal consumption and sulphiiretted air, 

 would soon mar its outlines and eat away 

 the best touches of the artist's work. It 

 is a positive fact, that luarble does not long 

 withstand the destructive influences to 

 wliich it must be submitted when exposed 

 to the open air in England ; and as we are 

 slow to move in gardening as in politics, 



