FLOWER GARDENS, BEDS AND BORDERS. 



appropriate plan in those English domains which have grown out of farm houses, and where 

 the old picturesque farm buildings and enclosures have been retained and adapted to garden 

 uses. Orchards will remain much as they were, and cattle yards and other enclosures be 

 converted into gardens and green courts, and where this is done with skill and taste, 

 the result will often fully compensate for the loss of the terrace scheme, with its variety 

 of levels. The first object should be to give some direct connection between these several 

 gardens, the openings being treated so as to secure long vistas such as that shown in 

 illustrations Nos. 137 and 138. An alternative which is capable of producing very pretty 

 effects is obtained by piercing the wall between two such gardens with a series of arched 

 openings similar to those shown in illustration No. 136. Whatever other treatment of the 

 old walls is undertaken, however, the clothing of them with beautiful climbers, trained 

 to trellis where necessary, should form a definite part of the scheme. The best method of 



FIG. 137. OLD WALLS BROKEN THROUGH TO FORM VISTAS. FIG. 138. 



dealing with such gardens is to treat the spaces between the beds as paved walks, 

 edging them with box or stone. Between the various beds forming part of one panel 

 design, they would be kept quite narrow, say two feet to two and a half feet broad, 

 while the paved space round each panel would be broader, say six feet across in 

 ordinary cases. 



Illustration No. 140 shows an arrangement which is capable of delightful effects in which 

 the garden is devoted entirely to roses and carnations, two favourite flowers, which, under 

 skilful management, harmonize perfectly. The design allows the beds to be changed, should 

 this be thought desirable, say, alternate years, in order to obtain some of the benefits of 

 crop rotation. This garden is placed between the walled-in kitchen garden and the well- 

 known and beautiful pleasure grounds at Madresfield Court, the seat of Earl Beauchamp, 

 and provides a good and successful solution for a difficult problem, that is, how to tone 

 down the aggressive lines of the brick walls which are essential to a large garden 

 where high-class horticulture is pursued. 



in 



