SCOTTISH GAEDENS 



spread their noble foliage, meet companions for the 

 native wood bell-flower (C. latifolia) and the giant 

 saxifrage (S. peltata). It is a place to make patent 

 the futility and self-consciousness of so many rock 

 gardens ; it is indeed inimitable by most gardeners, 

 for the foot of man can never have passed through 

 this gorge until Miss Bertha caused paths to be 

 hewn out of the vertical rocks and flung a bridge 

 here and there across the chasm. 



The license of flower and foliage which riots in 

 this dell throws into high relief the perfect order 

 and neatness maintained in the rest of the grounds. 

 Neatness without formality. There is not a gravel 

 or paved path in the whole garden ; nothing but 

 shaven sward on which you walk as upon velvet 

 pile sward in green lagoons, as it were, across which 

 splendid oaks fling broad shadows sward in smooth 

 alleys between banks of summer flowers which have 

 succeeded the spring bulbs, now fast asleep in the 

 mould sward in bays and corridors among choice 

 rhododendrons and a few, not too many, conifers. 

 Here and there, in sunny nooks, stand pillars of a 

 peculiar kind, supporting large pots of geraniums. 

 These pillars come from neighbouring Mauchline, 

 famous for its curling stones, and are the sandstone 

 rollers upon which the harder curling stones have 

 been ground. The sandstone wears away in grooves 

 and rolls, causing the core to assume an architectural 

 character, in which Miss Bertha's quick eye detected 

 decorative properties. Two of these rollers, set one 



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