12 A YEAR IN A LANCASHIRE GARDEN. 



planted a Marechal Niel in its place. Beyond the 

 vineries on both sides are my best Peaches and 

 Nectarines. On the south-west wall are Peaches 

 and Nectarines, Apricots, Plums and Pears, and 

 on the north-east Cherries and Currants. In front 

 of the Vine border is a broad gravel walk, which 

 reaches along the whole breadth of the garden, 

 and on the other side of it are the flower-beds. 

 There are about forty of them in all, of different 

 shapes and sizes, and divided from each other by 

 little winding walks of red Jersey gravel. As you 

 come upon them all at once, but cannot see the 

 whole at a glance, I have no temptation to sacrifice 

 everything to monotonous regularity and a mere 

 effect of colour. I take bed by bed, and make 

 each as beautiful as I can, so that I have a constant 

 variety, and so that at no season of the year am I 

 entirely bare of flowers. Box hedges three feet 

 high and some two and a half feet thick, and a 

 screen of Rhododendrons, separate the flower 

 garden from the kitchen garden, which is beyond ; 

 and right through both flower garden and kitchen 

 garden, from the front of the Vine border to the 

 far hedge by the croft, we have just been extend- 

 ing a grass walk, and planting, along the part that 

 skirts the kitchen garden, Pears, Plums, and (for 



