48 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



In the warm or temperate south, in Madeira or the Riviera, the 

 garden lover sometimes makes a pretty hedge of Oak-leaved 

 Geraniums ; but, as one does not see them in the South of England, 

 it is a surprise to see them happy on the walls here in Scotland, 

 growing from four feet to seven feet high, with fresh foliage and 

 many flowers. Their spicy fragrance and pretty foliage make them 

 worth the trouble of storing in the winter, and placing in the open 

 air in early summer. All the winter they are kept in the house on 

 trellises, and, carefully trained in summer against the warm wall, soon 

 make fresh growth and are in good bloom late in September. 



Large borders of the common river Forget-me-not remind us of 

 its value as compared with the wood and Alpine Forget-me-nots 

 usually grown in gardens. It is beautiful in moist borders, flowering 

 long through summer and autumn. The charm of the place almost 

 ceases with the terraces, for below them is one of those wonderful 

 displays of " bedding out " in its cruder forms, which attains its 

 greatest " glory " near large Scottish houses, — plants in squares, 

 repeated by thousands, and walks from which all interest is taken by 

 the planting on each side being of exactly the same pattern. 



Steps and Terrace in the Old Park, Axminster. — This 

 engraving is instructive as regards the bare state of many gardens. For 

 many years past the rule in some of the most pretentious geometrical 

 gardens has been to allow no vegetation on the walls or balustrades, 

 but the older and graceful way is to garland all wall surfaces with 

 beautiful life, and not to wholly hide them in doing so. Dividing 

 lines and walls may do their work without being as bare as if in a 

 stonemason's yard. 



The idea of the terrace garden came from the steep slopes of Italy 

 and Greece. The rough wall of the peasant, which prevented the 

 earth from being washed away, and gave a little depth on the stony 

 hillside, became, in the garden of the wealthy man, the built terrace, — 

 structurally right, and necessary whether men gardened for pleasure 

 or for profit. Having got their ground level through terracing, it was 

 the rule to plant with beautiful things — Olive-trees for profit, and 

 Cypress for shade. If anybody will compare such effects with the 

 common debased English planting of the flower-garden, where 

 everything is hard and flat and nothing is allowed on the walls, he will 

 at once see a vital difference. 



Penshurst. — There is no more essential charm for a garden than 

 that it should be itself in character and not be a copy of gardens near 

 it or elsewhere. This merit belongs to Penshurst, and the network 

 of orchard trees and tall summer flowers beneath them which make 

 up much of the flower gardening there. Much of the ground between 

 the kitchen garden and the house is thrown into squares and strips, 



