JUNE 347 



round the roots of anything. Where we are has been an 

 eye-opener to me about the English abroad and their 

 narrowness in household management. Our garden was 

 made by an Englishman, so all our beds are raised, and 

 are washed away in every storm, and the would-be gravel 

 path is most of it in the high road below. Your book has 

 been of the greatest use in our tiny garden. Even though 

 the conditions are so different, the spirit is the same.' 



My dear young friend a little misses the spirit of what 

 I mean when she thinks the system of the garden she 

 describes can be brought to England. Where there is 

 frost and damp, such things get soon spoilt and injured, 

 and look mournful and decayed. Broken-up paving- 

 stones are pretty in a formal garden, and planted with 

 Lavender, Pinks, Carnations, Eosemary, Saxifrages, and 

 Roses can be made to look lovely at all seasons. But 

 sunk beds as she describes them, which are perfect for 

 irrigation in the South, would never do here. The plants 

 would damp off. Raised beds, however, are undesirable 

 even in England in light soils. We can no more imitate 

 what is best in the South than they can imitate our 

 velvet lawns and our sweeping Beech-trees. Planting the 

 Viola odorata (the Old English garden Violet) under 

 every shrub or tiny Gooseberry and Currant bush in both 

 flower and kitchen garden has been a great success with 

 me in Surrey. If tried with even Czar Violets, which 

 require more care and cultivation, it would be a failure. 

 The cultivation of Carnations in pots might be more 

 carried out in England with advantage, I think. And it 

 would be better if the pots were painted or glazed half- 

 way down, as done on the Continent, to prevent evapora- 

 tion. The single-branching Larkspurs of all colours were 

 grown in pots at Florence, and looked so well. I am 

 trying some. They are far prettier than the double 

 annual Larkspur generally grown in England. 



