52 WALL AND WATER GARDENS 



The upper terrace shows not unskilful manage- 

 ment of a rather abrupt transition from the wooded 

 slope to pure formality by a nearly symmetrical line 

 of evergreens. Next comes a grand retaining wall, 

 buttressed at short intervals and planted with good 

 wall-shrubs. The wall rises enough to form a parapet 

 to the upper terrace. The point where each buttress 

 rises and gives occasion to widen the coping above, 

 is accentuated by an American Aloe in a pot. The 

 pots are of plain flower-pot shape and look a little 

 too plain for this use, although the character of the 

 walling does not demand vases highly enriched. 



The weakest point in the middle terrace is the 

 poverty of scheme in the succession of small square 

 beds that break forward in each bay between the 

 piers, and that seem to be planted without any general 

 design or distinct intention, but with stiff little edg- 

 ings showing an outer margin of bare earth. This 

 would be much improved by putting all the beds 

 together as to the space nearest the wall ; and next 

 the grass, by leaving the length of the front edge 

 of two beds and the interval between them, and in 

 the space represented by the front of the third, swing- 

 ing the front line back in an arc (not a whole semi- 

 circle but something shallower), in the centre of 

 which the pot plants would stand ; then continuing 

 the treatment with the next pair of beds, followed 

 by the segmental swing-back, and so on throughout. 

 Moreover, the front line of the beds comes too far 

 forward into the grass by about one-fourth of its 

 projection, taken from the line of the front of the 



