216 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



walk having a distinct charm, but in England, generally, it must be 

 kept indoors in winter. 



Excellent use may be made of the great handsome oil-jars, which 

 are used to bring olive oil from Italy to London, and the best things 

 to put in them are half-hardy plants, which can be taken intact into 

 the cool greenhouse or conservatory at the approach of frost. Even 

 Seakale-pots can be filled with half-hardy plants, as scarlet Pelar- 

 goniums, which have a good effect in them. In some rich and moist 

 soils the Pelargonium all grows to leaves and does not flower, and in 

 such cases we can humour it into good bloom by growing it in pots 

 or vases in the light soil that suits the plants. 



ORANGE TREES IN TUBS. One of the most curious examples 



of routine and waste I saw in the Tuileries gardens on the last day 



of September, 1896, when the Paris people were preparing for the Czar, 



and among their labours was the refurbishing of the old Orange 



trees in these gardens. There were a regiment of them set all along 



the gardens at regular intervals in immense and costly tubs, involving 



herculean labour to move in and out of the orangery. One might 



suppose this labour to be given for some beautiful end in perfecting 



the flower or fruit of the plant, but nothing of the kind ; the trees 



being trained into mop heads, and when the plants make any 



attempt to take a natural growth they are cut sharply back, and often 



have an uglier shape than any mop. The ground was strewn with 



shoots of the orange trees which had been cut back hard. When 



the tree was in poor health, as it was often, the dark stems were the 



most visible things seen against the blue sky. This costly and ugly 



work is a survival of the time when the " golden apples " were a 



novelty, and it was not so easy to go and see them growing in the 



open air as it now is, and so what was worth doing as a curiosity 



hundreds of years ago is carried out still. Since the idea of growing 



these trees in such an ugly fashion arose we have had a noble 



garden flora brought to us from all parts of the earth, and it would 



be easy to take our choice of different ways of adorning this garden 



in more artistic ways with things in the open ground, and of far 



greater beauty. If this thing at its best and done with great cost 



has such a result, what are we to think of the English imitations of 



it, such as those at Panshanger, in which hardy shrubs are used, like 



Portugal laurels, and sham tubs placed around them ? 



I saw the vast orangerie terrace at Sans Souci in July 1 897, and 

 was deeply struck by its " ornaments " in tubs ; the branches of the 

 poor distorted trees like black skeletons against the summer sky 

 showing that even with all the aids of artifice, no good result with 

 tubbed oranges is got in northern Germany no more than in 

 northern France. In the warmer south a little better result may be 



