My Garden in Spring 



the plants themselves : better a hundred yards of Arabis 

 than half a dozen vernal Gentians. So now their vast 

 rock-works are arranged like the pattern of a pavement : 

 here is a large triangle filled neatly with a thousand plants 

 of Alyssum saxatile, neatly spaced like bedded Stocks, and 

 with the ground between them as smooth and tidy as a 

 Guardsman's head ; then, fitting into this, but separated 

 by stone or rock, more irregular great triangles of the 

 same order one containing a thousand Aubrietia " Laven- 

 der," and the next a thousand Lithospermum prostratum 

 But nothing else ; neither blending nor variety nothing 

 but a neat unalloyed exhibit like those on " rock- works " 

 at the Chelsea Show. But what a display is here ! You 

 could do no better with coloured gravels. Neat, unbroken 

 blanks of first one colour and then another, until the 

 effect indeed is sumptuous and worthy of the taste that 

 has combined such a garden. But " garden " why call 

 it ? There are no plants here ; there is nothing but 

 colour, laid on as callously in slabs as if from the paint- 

 box of a child. This is a mosaic, this is a gambol in 

 purple and gold ; but it is not a rock garden, though tin 

 chamois peer never so frequent from its cliffs upon the 

 passer-by, bewildered with such a glare of expensive 

 magnificence. This is, in fact, nothing but the carpet- 

 bedding of our grandfathers, with the colour-masses laid 

 on in pseudo-irregular blots and drifts, instead of in 

 straight stretches ; and with outlines of stone between 

 each definite patch, instead of the stitching that divides 

 similar colour patch from patch in the crazy quilt. Well, 

 such artists in the grand style have their reward. 



