58 MY GARDEN 



familiar name ; and I only find a gardener's catalogue 

 to be a horrible thing when the names of plants 

 are given incorrectly. 1 I glory in the writer's pro- 

 found knowledge of what a garden should be, and 

 I bow with admiration and respect before pictures 

 of Badminton, Rycott, Wrest, Haddon, and other 

 glorious formal gardens from the olden time ; but, 

 touching plants, we must move with the century 

 if we are gardeners at all. The gillyflower is not 

 forgot ; Solomon's seal, Jacob's ladder, sweet- William, 

 bergamot, love-in-a-mist, columbine, and a hundred 

 other sweet and precious things that our great-grand- 

 mothers loved, are all honoured in my garden ; but 

 this is no reason why I should deny myself Car- 

 pentaria californica, say, or the tiny daffodils from 

 Spain, or a cluster of calorchortus, or the latest 

 deep purple loveliness of a new hybrid syringa. I 

 would have the architect in my garden, if I could 

 with his fine old leaden statues, stately vases, sun- 

 dials, balustrades, and gazebos; but I would never 

 let him be unkind to the gardener. The case is 

 made for the jewels, not the jewels for the case. 



I am led to these reflections as I walk up and 

 down in front of my straight, stiff, and formal lime- 

 stone rock-border. If you look with eyes unpre- 

 judiced you will find beauty here for twelve months 

 out of the year. There is, in fact, never a day 

 without flowers upon this border. But it does not 

 make any pretence to imitate nature, save in one 



1 I saw Pendennis Veitchii in a sale catalogue only last week, but the 

 plant was a pandanus. 



