CHAPTER I 



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Introduction — The garden described — Cyclamens — 

 Cliristmas Roses. 



Every garden has its own special and separate char- 

 acter, which arises partly from the tastes of the owner 

 or his gardener, but still more from the situation, 

 aspect, and soil of the garden. It is this that saves 

 our gardens from monotony ; if the conditions of 

 every garden were the same, it is to be feared that 

 the love of following the fashion of the day would 

 make our gardens painfully alike. But this is pre- 

 vented by the happy law that before success can be 

 reached the nature of the garden must be studied, and 

 the study soon leads to the conviction that we cannot 

 take our neighbour's garden as the exact model for our 

 own, but must be content to learn a little fi*om one 

 and a little from another, and then to adajjt the 

 lessons to our own garden in the way that our own 

 experience (often very dearly bought) tells us is the 



