340 ENGLISH COTTAGE GARDENS 



can be. The English labourer can grow the calceolaria, a yellow 

 flower like a lady's slipper, which is as refined and distinguished as 

 anything you could wish. I saw thousands of front yards gay 

 with calceolarias. 



Even in winter an English labourer's garden is beautiful because 

 the grass is evergreen, whereas with us it gets brown. Then, too, 

 the English climate is favourable for broad-leaved evergreens, while 

 that of the North is not. Cottagers often propagate their own 

 box edging. English holly grows wild. And best of all their ivy 

 is evergreen and grows like a weed. 



No other examples need be given here because most of the 

 important plants that thrive in England, but not in America, are 

 mentioned in other chapters. 



THE STYLE OF GARDENING DIFFERENT 



Quite as important as the material in these cottage gardens 

 is the difficult question of a national style in gardening. 



I was motoring through the Southern counties of England as 

 the guest of one of America's best landscape gardeners, and we were 

 exclaiming over the beauty of the cottage gardens when I pro- 

 pounded to my friend this question: "Is there anything peculiarly 

 British in these gardens?" 



"Not at all," he replied. "Of course the cottages have a 

 national quality and they lend an English atmosphere to the 

 gardens. But the gardens themselves have the same plants you 

 see on the Continent, and there is nothing particularly English 

 in the design. We do not see one type of cottage garden repeated 

 many times. Every garden seems different. Indeed, I believe 

 their beauty is individual rather than national" 



This surprising conclusion may seem at first to be reinforced 



