VARIOUS FLOWER GARDENS. 



veil of sweetness. In front of the study window, on the lawn, an 

 immense plant of Japanese Honeysuckle grows, and next to this the 

 pride of the study garden lay in its double yellow Brier Roses. These 

 grew very freely, and in June the wall of the house and garden was 

 ablaze with the golden blooms, the rooms being decorated for two or 

 three weeks with dishes of the yellow Roses. From the low, damp 

 situation of the rectory, none but the hardiest plants could be grown 

 out-of-doors ; but the borders were always gay with such plants as 

 Phloxes, Delphiniums, Saxifrages, Pinks, Pansies, and, above all, 

 Roses and Carnations. One bay in front of the house was well 

 covered with Pyracantha, in which a pair of white-throats built un- 

 disturbed for many years. Rhododendrons grew in the greatest 

 luxuriance, and the neighbours always came to see the rector's garden 

 when two beds, on either side of the front, were in blossom. An 

 ancient Yew tree, and a slight hedge of Laburnum, Hollies, Lilac, 

 and Syringa divide the rectory garden from the churchyard, and 

 here, again, the rector turned his mind to making the best of what 

 he had. The church, a plain red brick structure, was gradually 

 covered with Roses, Ivy, Cotoneaster, Pyracantha, &c., and, in order 

 that his parishioners should look on beautiful objects when they 

 assembled in the churchyard for their Sunday gossip before service, 

 the older part of the churchyard was planted with choice trees, flower- 

 ing shrubs. Junipers, Cypress, Berberis, and Acer Negundo, and the 

 Grass dotted with Crocuses where it was not carpeted with wild white 

 Violets. 



Edge Hall garden is one of those in which the hardy flowers of 

 the northern world are grown in numbers for the owner's delight and 

 the good of his friends, and it is in such large collections that charming 

 novelties for our gardens often make their appearance. Such gardens 

 in our own day carry on the traditions, so to say, of very interesting 

 English and Scottish gardens of the past, in which numbers of beauti- 

 ful open air things were grown — among those I have had the happi- 

 ness to see were the late Mr. Borrer's at Henfield in Sussex, a garden 

 museum of beautiful hardy plants and of rare British forms of plants and 

 trees ; the Ellacombes' garden at Bitton ; Mr. Leeds' garden at Man- 

 chester ; Stirling's at Edinburgh ; Comely Bank, a home for the rarest 

 and most beautiful plants ; the Rev. Harpur Crewe's ; Mr. Atkins's 

 garden at Painswick ; Sir George McLeay's at Pendell Court; Major 

 Gaisford's at Offington, and many other delightful gardens. The riches 

 of the collection in such gardens are a source of danger as to effect, the 

 very number of plants often leading to a neglect of breadth and 

 simplicity of effect ; but there is no real reason why a garden, rich 

 in many plants, may not also be beautiful in its masses, airiness and 

 verdure. A mile to the east the well-wooded and well-heathered range 



