VILLA GARDENS EAST OF FUNCHAL 57 



plants, especially creepers, will make astonishingly 

 rapid growth, but patience is required at first, 

 though well rewarded in the end. 



It is evident that this garden is tended with 

 loving hands, and all the necessary alterations and 

 pruning are done under the close supervision of its 

 owners. Their collection of begonias is a large 

 one, and they seem to thrive better in this garden 

 than anywhere else in Funchal, and appear to be 

 in perpetual flower. Pelargoniums of the varieties 

 known in England as Show Pelargoniums, and 

 not of late years much cultivated, new favourites 

 having ousted them from the greenhouse, are here 

 grown into large bushes, many of them five and six 

 feet in height. It is only growing freely in this way 

 that one has any idea of the beauty of many plants 

 which we only know cramped in the narrow area 

 of a six-inch pot. In Southern Italy I remember 

 these same varieties of pelargoniums were grown 

 hanging over terrace walls, and possibly were even 

 more beautiful than when receiving artificial 

 support. 



It would again be impossible to enumerate all 

 the plants in this little garden, but it brings to 

 my mind's eye a vision of fuchsias, bouvardias, 

 a beautiful deep mauve lantana, the clear yellow 



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