284 



THE OARDENEIVH ilONTHLY 



[September, 



interwoven witli plaiiLs and Mowers sulapted to 

 each successional scene, as to appear a part each 

 of the other, and it atlords no end of enjoyment. 

 It seemed ahnost incredihle that so inucli could 

 be crowded into so small a apace. How well 

 this little place illustrated the progre.^is of Eng- 

 lish gardening! When I knew it forty years 

 ago, it was famous for its large Silver Firs, going 

 on to a hundred foet high, as I thought then, 

 but their nearly dead trunks now show they 

 could have been barely seventy, (again the decep- 

 tive past!) and there were its fine Horse Chest- 

 nuts, and Portugal Laurels, Rhododendrons, and 

 nice, shaded walks through them. There were 

 flower beds, with box edgings and gravel walks 

 about them, and all flowers such as these were in 

 those days. But a garden like this ! Who would 

 have dreamed of it! 



St. Clare is one of those lovely little gems 

 which once seen, is never forgotten, and this I 

 say not because five or six years of my own boy- 

 ish life was spent on it, or because my own 

 father, a hale, hearty man of eighty, has still 

 charge of it, but because I know that any one 

 who sees it will say 'tis true. Of course the 

 climate helps it. The Winter is seldom worse 

 than at New Orleans in our own country, while 

 the air in Summer i.s always moist, and the tem- 

 perature generally steady at about 70°. What 

 plant would not enjoy a life like this? Well, 

 there are a few dissatisfied even here, as even 

 Lucifer tired of the jo3's of heaven, and there 

 were Paulownias and others like them, still 

 doing something, but evidently wishing for the 

 Summer heats of the United States. 1 never saw 

 Roses do anywhere, in any part of the world, 

 like they do here, and it is not to be wondered 

 at that year after year, in spite of the severest 

 competition, the first premium was taken with 

 them at the Island show. The proprietor sec- 

 onds the generosity of the soil and culture, and 

 every year new roses are added to the list. The 

 best roses always come from the plants budded 

 on briar stocks. Most of them are budded about 

 on a level with the eye, giving an excellent 

 chance to easily examine and smell them. Some 

 of them are very old — thirty and forty years, I 

 know — and yet are as healthy and yield as fine 

 roses as if planted but half a dozen years ago. I 

 measured one of these old plants. It was the 

 Duchesse de Berri. The stem of the briar stock 

 was six inches round. The plant had been bud- 

 ded about four feet from the ground about 

 twenty-five years since. The head was four feet 



in diameter, though prniiod back every year, 

 and I counted Ktr fiumlnd (lowers on it. Of 

 course in a climate like this (here are Myrtles, 

 Fuchsias, New Holland Acacias, Camellias, and 

 many other things, generally greenhouse plants, 

 here in the open air, but few would expect to 

 see them of such gigantic size. Fuchsia longi- 

 flora, which, with F. fulgens for the other i)arent, 

 gave the birth to the present race of Hybrid 

 Fuchsias in the person of F.St. Clare, — the original 

 plant of F. longiflora of this hybrid, is still in the 

 open air in the same spot it was thirty-five years 

 or more ago, and as healthy as a willow tree. 



Though in a climate so favorable one might 

 expect to find things ranked as greenhouse plants 

 with us in the open ground here, one can hardly 

 avoid surprise at the grand specimens of some 

 things. Imagine a Portugal Laurel with branches 

 spreading over a surface one hundred feet 

 round, and covered with millions of spikes of 

 blossoms ; a bush of the New Zealand Flax, which 

 lias been here nearly forty years, and is now astock 

 six feet across ; a Rose with a stem eight inches 

 round; a Hawthorne with a trunk five feet in 

 girth ; the rare Ilex latifolia (grafted on some 

 other stock), twenty-five feet high, and covered 

 with berries just turning red ; a New Holland 

 Acacia four feet round, and especially remark- 

 able, a Yucca gloriosa with a trunk four and a 

 half feet round, and with twelve huge arms, each 

 branching into numerous small ones. These are 

 of immense weight, and each arm has to be sup- 

 ported by an iron buttress, or it would split and 

 fall away by its own weight alone. Here is, j>er- 

 haps, one of the best specimens of that beautiful 

 Californian pine, Pinus insignis, in cultivation. 

 I had no means just then of getting its exact 

 height, but it is certainly fifty feet, while it 

 measured eight feet round the trunk a foot or so 

 from the ground. It is a good illustration of the 

 fact often mentioned in the Gardener\'( Monthly, 

 that trees grow much more rapidly than people 

 generally suppose. As a boy I assisted at the 

 planting of this tree, then in a six-inch flower 

 j)0t, ju.-5t thirty-four years ago the past Spring. 

 Here are also other evidences that plants do not 

 take long to grow. There is a Blood Beech over 

 forty feet, Cedars of Lebanon fifty feet, and many 

 other things about these heights, and all planted 

 within thirty years. The chief attraction in 

 these beautiful grounds is the continuously vary- 

 ing sets of flower gardens, all so differently ar- 

 ranged, and each among such differing sur- 

 roundings, that continuous variety is well 



