440 Gardens and Gardening in Dur7iam. 



houses are loftier than common, and have vines trained upon the 

 rafters, they are not well adapted for the cultivation of plants ; 

 neither do the vines seem to succeed well. Some variously 

 formed beds in front of and about these houses constitute the 

 flower-garden, in which there is a good selection of herbaceous 

 plants, and an excellent assortment of calceolarias, dahlias, 

 and pansies. Mr. Stephenson, the gardener, is an inveterate 

 hybridiser, and has raised several distinct and superior varieties 

 of these flowers, and also of pelargoniums and petunias. 



In the kitchen-garden (which is separated from the flower de- 

 partment by a screen of trees and shrubs), there is a wall of 

 fine young peach trees, which, when I saw them (June 20.)} 

 were just recovering from the blighting influence of the late un- 

 paralleled spring. The soil excavated from a pond contiguous 

 to the flower-garden has been turned to good account in the 

 formation of a small mound, upon the top of which Mr. Ste- 

 phenson has constructed an exceedingly pretty moss-house. 



At West Lodge, late the Residence of J. Backhouse, Esq., the 

 pleasure-ground is, for a suburban place, extensive ; and the 

 trees it contains bear marks of greater age than those usually seen 

 at such places. The mansion, too, looks more ancient than any 

 of the surrounding villas; and the whole place has an expression 

 of solitude, which a visitor feels more forcibly from its proximity 

 to a bustling and populous town. A large, but most unornamental, 

 green-house stands in a corner of this lawn; and joining this 

 house, at one end, there is a sort of home-made aviary, one 

 division of which has been clumsily metamorphosed into a 

 plant-house. But the green-house, although so uninviting in its 

 exterior, contained, at the period of my visit (June 20.), a large 

 collection of calceolarias most superiorly cultivated : in fact, 

 previously to my seeing these plants 1 had no conception of the 

 perfection to which the calceolaria might be brought by care and 

 skill. The general collection of green-house plants is respectable ; 

 and, amon<r them, I was particularly struck with a beautiful light- 

 coloured salpiglossis, called there S. striata. On the north side 

 of the pleasure-ground, a square plot (formerly the kitchen- 

 garden) is laid out as a geometrical flower-garden ; but the beds 

 do not exhibit much variety or elegance of form. The divisions 

 between the beds are of gravel, with box edgings. Herbaceous 

 plants occupy most of these beds ; a few, however, are planted 

 with flowering shrubs, as roses and fuchsias; and others are 

 devoted to bulbs, which are succeeded by dahlias or annuals. 

 There is a small vinery in this department, which is fitted up for 

 the reception of plants in winter : vines are also grown in the 

 lar^-e green-house ; but, as is generally the case in similar places, 

 the fruit they produce is not very good. 



In the melon-ground I noticed a fine-looking variety of cucum- 



