170 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



WALKING BOUND THE GAEDEK 



jHE first step out of the dull routine of winter life is to 

 take a walk round the garden. There comes a sunny- 

 day in March, the birds tune up for canticles, and the 

 borders burst into flames, as the strong sunshine opens 

 the crocuses, while the winds that have been howling 

 round the corner and down the chimney become calm and candid, 

 and blow softly and steadily into your face in the pleasant way that 

 a friend would speak to you. You must walk round the garden, for 

 if you stay any longer in the house, you will have the fidgets. For 

 several years I followed this excellent plan, and it paid well. I 

 took my friends in turn, and walked round the garden with them ; 

 and being an enthusiast in matters horticultural, I always made as 

 sure as possible of a long stay with one friend who was rich in the 

 old-fashioned flowers. AVe used to eat, and drink, and talk, as men 

 who meant it, and the lady of the house appeared to be never so 

 happy as in ministering to our comfort. When we had made our 

 morning walk, we used to creep into the house-yard, and tap on 

 the window of the store-room, and the hostess instantly threw up 

 the hatch, and with her rosy face rippled with smiles, provided 

 delicious cups of beer and small eatables, so that we used to regard 

 the window as our luncheon-bar. 



The best entertainment this garden afi'orded — that is, when we 

 were tired of discussing politics, morals, literary criticism, and the 

 merit and meaning of last Sunday's sermon — consisted in our sys- 

 tematic review of the hardy border-flowers, for here was an immense 

 collection, comprising many of the grandest plants in the class 

 known to cultivation. In those early spring days we were feasted 

 on crocuses of many kinds, in great glittering masses of orange, 

 white, lilac, purple, and intermediate shades ; and these, with all 

 their splendour, did not eclipse the immense collection of prim- 

 roses, single and double, comprising flowers of all colours, rich 

 mellow purple, intense crimson, pure white, soft creamy yellow, and 

 many shades of lively rose. We saw the day lilies rising in con- 

 spicuous tufts of tender green, the helleborus still displayed a few 

 of its flowers, the Italian coltsfooL difl'used its powerfnl spicy odour, 

 the shady shrubbery-borders were smothered with violets of half-a- 

 dozen colours, the double-white being particularly sweet and 

 elegant ; and of hepaticas — oh ! I never could get beyond an empty 

 exclamation over the hepaticas, for it is impossiible that any garden 

 in all the world could have shown such clumps, and such colours, 

 heavenly blue, crimson, amethyst, purple — I must begin and end 

 with oh ! 



The place was yet more rich in plants, of the same hardy nature, 

 of kinds less known. There were tufts of Alpine androsaces, with 

 flowers that reminded one of costly jewellery, though no work of 

 man's cunning could compare with them. Rare aiiemones, aqui- 

 legias, aubrietias, campanulas, corydalis, cyclamens, dianthuses, 



