100 



GARDENS OLD AND 



AkCHWAY LHAUING TO I HK KITCHEN GARDEN. 



evident tliat the beautiful stretch of forest ground deserved 

 to have its own sentiment preserved as much as possible, and 

 that where it met the garden it would be well that the two 

 should join easily and without any sudden jolt. Therefore the 

 planting between wood and lawn is of easy groups of such 

 shrubs and trees as first suggest woodland, crabs and 

 amelanchier, with plantings of double-flowered bramble and 

 double gorse, an J some of the wilder of the rambling roses. 

 By degrees, as the clumps or brakes approach the lawn, they 

 have more of the garden character; some are of rhododendrons, 

 and one at some distance from these is of a/aleas, for the two 

 should never be mixed ; among others are some of berberis 

 and shrubby spirrra. Then comes a good stretch of lawn 

 space, only broken by a fine old bush of blackthorn. 



Often a new place is sp tilt by the removal of good original 

 features. Here the good taste of the owners, and especially 

 Lady Chance's fme'.y-trained artistic knowledge, has carefully- 

 preserved all that was of value, and made the most of every 

 natural advantage. Though not much of a practical gardener 

 before settling at Orchards, Lady Chance at once appre- 

 hended the value of the best ways of gardening, and with rare 

 aptitude assimilated a knowledge of the ways and needs of 

 flowers, and, above all, acquired that fine sense, a thing 

 scarcely attainable without considerable training in the fine 

 arts, of the qualities that make a particular flower or plant 

 most suitable for certain garden uses. 



In spring, before the bracken is grown, in the wild ground 

 under the oaks are wide stretches of pale daffodils, planted in 

 those long level drifts that Nature has taught us are the best 

 ways of disposing these flowers. In another region, between 

 the garden and a grove of oak, are tufts of wild primrose in 

 the grass, and thriving clumps of cyclamen for autumn. This is 

 in a place where the ground is grassy, but nearly bare of fern. 

 Planting in dry walls is successfully done at Orchards, a way 

 of gardening that brings quick reward. 



The walled kitchen garden is close to the house, an extra 

 fruit wall dividing it into two portions. 'I he half nearest the 

 flower garden joins into it as to its lowest quarter, but here 

 the wall is represented by brick piers rising from a dwarf wall 

 and connected at the top by a festooned chain of free cluster 



mses. Here is a double flower border backed by a box hedge, 

 so that from the garden side flowers only are seen. Along the 

 inner side of the east wall is a raised pathway some 4t't. or jft. 

 above the garden level, giving a delightful view, over the 

 parapet, of the open country, and recalling the " mounts " and 

 raised paths of the old Tudor gardens. 



This division of the kitchen garden has double flower 

 borders along the main path, with a tank in the middle, and 

 rose arches. The borders are a blaze of late s-mnier flowers, 

 hollyhocks and perennial sunflowers, phloxes and marigolds, 

 while the brighter -coloured groups have iheir brilliancy 

 enhanced by judiciously-planted regions of the grey of cineraria 

 maritima, gypsophila, and lavender-cotton. It is one of the 

 unending pleasures of a garden to seek out every spot in it 

 that may be beautified by vegetation and to find the right plant 

 for the place. Thus even the joints of the stonework inside 

 the tank and just above the water level have been made the 

 homes of the native ferns that after a while come spontaneously 

 in such places ; so here are already thriving tufts of wall rue, 

 spleenwort, and hart's-tongue. 



The large deep hollow left by the quarrymen at the end 

 of the field has also been taken in hand. The steep descent 

 gave many hours of pleasant playwork, in engineering a 

 winding pathway of steps that rise from the lowest depth and 

 land above among the mounded hillocks of sandy waste. Here 

 ordinary garden plants would be inadmissible, the nature of 

 the place demanding for the most part things of bold character, 

 such as the giant rheums, thistles, eryngiums, elymus, and so 

 on. Like all wild gardening, it will only be right if just the 

 right things are used. Sloping banks of sandy debris show 

 good sown broom and gorse, and tree lupines have been 

 planted. Some of this region has been planted with birches, 

 while steep sandy banks are covered with double-flowered and 

 cut-leaved brambles. Cistuses are among the plants used 

 here, and some of the sand-loving south Europeans, rosemary, 

 hyssop, and lavender-cotton. 



Manifestly Orchards is an ideal country home, and it 

 possesses, with the garden, that most precious quality of 

 restfulness, as well as delight to mind and eye, that only 

 comes of the right use of good and simple material. 



