My Garden in Spring 



and the rocks take their dim place in the background as 

 helps and comforts indeed, but by no means as the raison 

 d'etre and pompous origin of the whole edifice. And the 

 result ? Let the lovers of display go home abashed before 

 a display such as not a hundred bedded-out Aubrietias 

 can give. If it were ever to be thought for a moment 

 that the real rock garden is a place of minute moribund 

 plants and microscopic minutenesses, so that the only 

 alternative lies between this and the gorgeous soullessness 

 of the Portland cementery, let those who have held such 

 notions only visit Mr. Bowles's garden at almost any 

 moment of the year, and wander past great tuft after 

 tuft of the rarest and most difficult brilliancies that have 

 quite forgotten they are rare or difficult at all or in exile, 

 but are here making individual masses individually be- 

 loved and tended, as full of rich colour and the blood of 

 life as they were on the Cima Tombea or the Col de 

 Tenda. There is no lack of show, indeed, as we wander 

 past blazing old clump after clump of glorious Tulips that 

 no one else can make survive two seasons, or wonder at 

 the glowing rows of Primulas that no one else can flower, 

 here gorgeous in their patches as on the ridge of the 

 Frate di Breguzzo itself. Indeed, the most passionate 

 admirer of Aubrietia will have to confess that his eye is 

 no less completely filled here, and filled with more satis- 

 faction and less monotony than in the most expensive 

 show-garden, filled with plants at so much per thousand. 

 And what are the secrets of this display, this freshness 

 of effect, this profound satisfaction that one takes away 

 with one, wrapped up in sighs of envy ? Far be it from 



