The Lunatic Asylum 



mouth Pines were left, and also the tower of Ivy that 

 smothered the Yew, a very fine specimen of tree Ivy, 

 rather too much the shape of a gigantic button mushroom 

 perhaps, but a wonderful sight when in full flower, and 

 the resort of a crowd of old pauper wasps and bluebottle 

 and drone flies that, at the end of the honey season, live 

 on its charity. 



Some large blocks of Kentish rag were placed to form 

 two rocky mounds round the stems of the trees, an irregu- 

 larly shaped bed or two left, and the rest of the circular 

 patch where the evergreen clump had stood was first 

 planted with Crocuses and then turfed over. The beds 

 were to have held Japanese plants, and the whole might 

 have developed into a sort of imitation Japanese garden, 

 but before it had got far that sort of thing became 

 fashionable, and bronze cranes and stone lanterns met one 

 in all sorts of unsuitable surroundings, the Temple Show 

 began to bristle with giant toads, and pagodas, and jingling 

 glass bird-scarers frightened the last idea of reproducing a 

 page of Conder right out of my head. Then a home was 

 needed for some trees and shrubs of abnormal charac- 

 teristics that I had been collecting, and the Lunatic Asylum 

 sprang into existence. 



The twisted Hazel was the first crazy occupant, and is 

 perhaps the maddest of all even now. It was first found 

 in a hedge by Lord Ducie, near Tortworth, who moved 

 it into the garden, increased it by layering, and so distri- 

 buted it to a few friends, my plant being a sucker given me 

 by Canon Ellacombe from his fine specimen. It is a most 

 remarkable form, for it never produces a bit of straight 

 wood ; the stem between each leaf is curved as though one 

 179 



