104 THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



The lophospermum, the eccrymocarpos, the maurandria, the 

 loasa, the rodokiton, verbenas, and petunias in all their 

 varieties, festoon themselves over the rugged bark, and 

 form the gayest and gracefullest garland imaginable ; while 

 the simple and pretty wall-snapdragon weeps over the 

 side, till its tiny pink threads are tangled among the 

 feathery ferns that fringe the base of the stump. 



The lawn now stretches some distance westward, its 

 green and velvet surface uninterrupted by a single shrub 

 (what a space for trap-bat, or " les graces" !) till towards 

 the verge of the shrubberies, into which it falls away, 

 irregular clumps of evergreens and low shrubs break the 

 boundary line of greensward. Here are no borders for 

 flowers, but clusters of the larger and bolder kinds, as 

 hollyhocks and peonies, rise from the turf itself; here too, 

 in spring, golden and purple crocuses, daffodils, aconites, 

 snowdrops, bluebells, cyclamen, wood-anemones, hepaticas, 

 the pink and the blue, chequer the lawn in bold broad 

 strips, the wilder sorts being more distant from the house, 

 and losing themselves under the dark underwood of the 

 adjoining coppice. The ground here becomes more varied 

 and broken ; clumps of double-flowering gorse, 



" the vernal furze 



With golden baskets hung," 



the evergreen barberry, the ilex in all its varieties, and 

 hardy ferns, bordering the green drive which leads to the 

 wilder part of the plantations. Here, in the words of 

 Bacon, " Trees I would have none in it, but some thicket 

 made only of sweet-brier and honeysuckle, and some wild 

 vine amongst; and the ground set with violets, straw- 

 berries, and primroses, for these are sweet, and prosper in 

 the shade, and these are to be in the heath here and there, 

 not in any order. I like also little heaps, in the nature of 



