148 



IRISH GARDENING 



but considerably sheltered by big trees at hand, 

 is bright this early autumn day ; very con- 

 spicuous being cluniT)s of the rich yellow Mont- 

 liretias Hereward and Croesus with King Edward 

 of that ilk in rich red. A tall, distinguished 

 Monkshood is Aconitum Wilsoni, and the 

 position suits Lol)elia Gloire de St. Ainie's to a T. 

 Here, and a})ropos Lobelias, the two old boys 

 get into discussion, your note-taker telling the 

 tale of Lobelia cardinalis (Queen Victoria) at 

 Killanie\ , 7 feet high, as tolcf him by Mr. A. J. 

 Elgar, and is pertinently pointed to the error 

 of his Ways by reference to the true cardinalis, 

 a green-leaved species in the same border, the 

 other being fulgens ; and so on to the flower 

 garden. 



M3' — ! But such a blaze of colour ! Talk about 

 the — ^the '" nakedness of the land " as conveyed 

 in our invitation to " come and see," It is the 

 enclosed garden facing the older glass range, the 

 western section of which as we entered facing 

 the fast-loAVering sun simply beggared descrip- 

 tion, and might have turned even Turner 

 himself (Turner of the old Temeraire) green with 

 envy. Beds en masse of blazing Begonias, of 

 which the double crimson Surpasse Davisi 

 monopolisingly led ; beds of those wonderful 

 Celosias in crimson and rich orange, such as one 

 never seems to see quite in the same perfection 

 outside StrafFan, and beds of Heliotropes, of 

 which we first fell in love with Madame Filley, 

 and then jilted her for the darker-hued Picciola, 

 yet feeling how happy could one be with either 

 were the other dear charmer away ; standard 

 Heliotropes, and the vivid green foliage of ivy- 

 leav^ed Pelargoniums in central beds on either 

 side (Turner too), 3 feet or more high, studded 

 with scarlet flowers. 



Returning to complete the round of the 

 pleasure grounds we note the attack made by 

 lightning during the last thunderstorm on the 

 tall Welhngtonia near the big Tulip tree, the 

 spongy bark being scored all the way down, 

 unlike the previous attack made by it on the 

 Cedar by the avenue which it utterly demolished. 

 On to the north end of the mansion, where some 

 new rockwork is in evidence and a lovely tangle 

 of Clematis flammula hangs over a wall at its 

 best. The Italian garden facing the mansion 

 We found entirely changed, the whole area of 

 the walks flagged, beds simplified, merely five 

 in each panel on either side, boundary wall out- 

 lines removed, and the colour scheme of planting 

 in red well set off by the big bold sweep of lawn 

 trending to the Liffey. The anglicised design is 

 certainly simpler and the effect to our thinking 

 eminently satisfactory. 



Alterations, too, have been made to the 



mansion, toj) and bottom balustradings having 

 been removed ; an additional entrance at the 

 south end giving access to new tennis lawns 

 which, although on newly made up ground, we 

 find as level and firm as a billiard table. A 

 couple of old English pattern seats in teak on 

 the terrace bear suggestive poetical legends : 

 the one " Here stop and spend a pleasant hour 

 in harmless mirth and fun. Let friendship reign, 

 be just and kind, and evil sj^eak of none." The 

 other bearing the possibly better known lines, 

 which we have seen in Lady Ardilaun's gardens, 

 St. Anne's, Clontarf, commencing " The kiss of 

 the sun for pardon. . . ." Then to the river. 



The Liffey plays a prominent part in pic- 

 turesque Straflfan : deep, placid, and clear, as 

 We see it now, and we get that soul-satisfying 

 view of the fuie old bridge away in the distance 

 from the suspended footbridge leading to the 

 wild garden beyond. Ainia Liffey, however, is 

 not always thus, and when excited by Jupiter 

 Pluvius is apt to steal a march up the lawns, 

 and on one occasion did its level best to remove 

 the footbridge on which we are standing. But, 

 on to the wild garden — graceful Bamboos, giant 

 Gunneras, colonies of Saxifraga peltata, Silphium 

 perfoliatum, Lilium pardalinum, but the latter 

 has not been happy this year ; Phormiums galore, 

 including the purple form, and to our delight 

 and worry a huge clump of that noble form, with 

 flower spikes 16 feet high, far nobler than either 

 tenax or Colensoi, rarely seen, but always one 

 of the worries of our gardening life to have it 

 identified. 



Here, too, on the island, is the kept portion 

 with its homely, heather- roofed summer-house, 

 outside of which stands one of the huge ancient 

 Irish millstones, and at hand a rockery bed with 

 lovely hardy Ferzis, notably so varieties of 

 hartstongue and the lady-fern daintly crisped 

 and curled ; clumps of the Welsh Polypody ex- 

 ceedingly happy and P. vulgare trichomanoides 

 as plumy as the plumose forms of Nephrolepis. 

 Nor may We forget the comforting colonies of 

 Adiantum pedatum, and more remarkable as a 

 hardy plant Adiantum Williamsii, which here 

 has made itself quite at home. Farther up is a 

 new susjiension bridge giving access to the far 

 side ; and so we amble on with the kitchen 

 gardens yet to inspect and more " nakedness of 

 the land," as per invitation. 



The kitchen garden, or, rather gardens, the 

 big area being longitudinally bisected by a 

 wall, at once strikes the professional by the 

 splendidly trained wall trees on which our old 

 friend has had his fingers for all but forty years, 

 both horizontal and fan-trained specimens 

 having gone the way they should go, and 



