CHISWIGK HOUSE 



A feature of the conservatory is the bank, or thicket, of magnifi- 

 cent camellia shrubs, or rather trees, for they rise from the ground 

 to the roof. They extend the entire length of the glass-house, 

 which is three hundred feet ; the glossy beauty of their smooth 

 dark leaves would render them attractive at any season ; even when 

 out of flower, but in the earlier months of the year, when, from 

 base to summit, they are laden with blossoms rose, scarlet and 

 white the effect of the long perspective of the conservatory, 

 studied from either extremity, is really wonderful. The camellia 

 is an aristocratic flower, almost as much so, although in shape and 

 manner of growth it differs widely from it, as the stately white 

 Nile Lily, of which the conservatory at Chiswick shows fine speci- 

 mens. There are fashions in floriculture as in everything else, 

 and except in old-fashioned greenhouses like this, one rarely 

 meets now with the exquisite waxen flowers that Japan and China 

 sent to us. Yet they are no more stiff than the sunflower or the 

 dahlia, or the hollyhock, which we admire so much, and they are 

 quite as decorative, and more lasting. Why, then, are they 

 banished ? Is it because some thirty years ago a craze set in for 

 cottage flowers, old English flowers, to the exclusion of foreign 

 ones ? Up to a certain point the preference was explained, since 

 no one can deny the peculiar attractiveness and sweetness of such 

 but it ran to absurd extremes. The glorious scarlet geranium, 

 for instance, was voted vulgar, although the vulgarity only lay 

 in the bad taste which could plant it in a " ribbon " border, or 

 contrast it with the peculiarly inharmonious yellow of the cal- 

 ceolaria ; consequently many gardens have been denied altogether 

 the cheerful blaze of " Tom Thumb " and his brethren ; and those 

 who in the last generation pretended to special culture, and arrayed 

 themselves in sad-coloured serges, and art muslins of secondary 

 and tertiary tint although they highly approved the daffodil, 

 did not altogether despise the violet, nor quite taboo the rose- 

 mostly shunned flowers of indefinite form, and of positive colour, 

 and sat up all night worshipping lilies ! Truly the last generation 

 saw the apotheosis of the lily, the columbine, and the Canterbury 

 bell, and all other flowers of undefined shape and pale complexion. 



In March, when the bright petals of the camellia commence to 

 drop, making a splash of red on the ground below the shrubs, the 

 conservatory at Chiswick begins to think of putting on its summer 



183 



