DALZELL CASTLE 



in early summer, before the bedding out had taken 

 effect, but there was plenty to please the eye and 

 awaken interest. The terrace walls were so beauti- 

 fully embroidered in parts with aubrietia, rock-roses, 

 arabis, wall-flowers, saxifrages, dianthus, and such like, 

 which had been inserted as seedlings in the chinks 

 of the masonry, and had grown into hanging cushions, 

 that one could not but wish that some of the ivy, 

 of which there is over-much to please a gardener, 

 might be cleared off in favour of choicer growths. 



The terrace stairs are neither prim nor kept too 

 scrupulously bare. On the contrary, saxifrages, bell- 

 flowers and yellow corydalis enliven every step and 

 joint, with here a springing fern or foxglove, and 

 there a hanging clematis. There is just enough allur- 

 ing disarray to soften the architectural preciseness of 

 the design. 



The lower terrace is even more delightful, for 

 here a broad grass walk is laid between two long 

 herbaceous borders. Woad tosses its golden spray 

 amid troops of iris, and woodruff wafts its delicate 

 incense from every waste corner. And to complete 

 the charm, the sound of running water is ever in 

 one's ears, rising from the burn far below, where, in 

 a grassy glade, Gunnera spreads her broad sails, to 

 be viewed, as so seldom they are aright, from above. 

 On the further cliff, the woodland mantle parts 

 broadly here and there to display great bays of 

 rhododendron. They are chiefly the common R. 

 ponticum, a plant with which familiarity has bred 



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