and other Suburban Gardens. 477 



London io Godalming, Jidy 2. — This is the proper season of the year 

 for observing, in the foliage of trees and shrubs, the effect of different 

 shades of green, or what may be called their summer colours ; and much 

 instruction may be derived by merely observing, from the road, the dif- 

 ferent trees and shrubs in the small gardens of suburban villas and 

 cottages. In short, the whole of the neighbourhood of London, including 

 a diameter of 20 or 30 miles, may be considered as one immense garden, 

 displaying within its precincts almost every variety of horticulture, flori- 

 culture, arboriculture, landscape-gardening, and garden architecture. 



A young gardener, if he has a certain previous stock of initiatory know- 

 ledge, will gain more by devoting a few weeks, or months, to examining 

 the London gardens, including market-gardens, nurseries, and private 

 gardens of every grade, than he could by any other course of education 

 whatever. Suppose an individual determined to improve himself in this 

 way ; he ought to take a lodging near the Horticultural Society's Garden 

 for a year, and get permission to work there without pay, at such times as 

 he was not making excursions : we say without pay, because that is not 

 to be expected where the service must necessarily be very irregular. He 

 ought then to visit all the principal suburban gardens at least seven times 

 in the course of the year ; viz., once in autumn, once in winter, twice in 

 spring, and three times in summer. The landscape-gardener may gain 

 much by merely looking at objects from the road j but the garden archi- 

 tect, the horticulturist, and the cultivator of flowers and trees, must enter 

 the gardens, and converse with those at work in them. A very great 

 beauty in the suburban scenery of London is the breadth of the hedge- 

 banks, which are, in short, a species of shrubbery, or rather mixed borders 

 of flowers and shrubs of many kinds, which afford a source of perpetual 

 entertainment to the botanical observer. Very different are the roadsides 

 in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, where the hedges or stone walls 

 occupy not more than a foot or two in breadth ; or in the neighbourhood 

 of Paris, where there is generally no fence at all, but a dry ditch, or, in 

 the best situations, a row of elm trees. Were there no other difference 

 whatever between the suburban scenery of these three cities than the 

 appearance of the hedge-banks, that of London would be incomparably 

 superior, in point of beauty and interest, to the other two. How meagre 

 are the roadsides of the cultivated districts of Scotland, when compared 

 with those of the most parts of England ! yet there is a remedy even for 

 the most meagre districts, and perhaps the time may come when a high 

 degree of refinement shall have become so general that it will be applied. 

 Instead of hedges of merely whitethorn, with one or two sorts of trees, 

 at regular distances, and a grassy ditch, substitute numerous different 

 kinds of hardy shrubs as a hedge, and trees of various sorts and standards, 

 adding a row of herbaceous plants. Vary the walls by creepers and 

 climbing plants of the shrubby kind, and by herbaceous creepers, alpine, 

 and wall plants. 



We took the route of Hammersmith, Putney Heath, Kingston, Thames 

 Ditton, Esher, Cobham Street, Ripley, and Guildford ; a delightful road, 

 on the objects seen from which we could expatiate with pleasure to an 

 extent which would fill this Magazine ; but we will confine ourselves, as 

 much as possible, to the places which we called at. 



Richmond Park. — Simple and grand; part of the wall adjoining the 

 road is varied by ivy of the common kind ; we could not help observ- 

 ing, that if the giant ivy had been substituted, it would have formed a 

 very different scale to all the objects beyond the wall ; the ivy being in 

 the foreground. This may afford a useful hint to landscape-gardeners. 

 Giant trees, such as some of the rapid-growing poplars, improperly placed 

 in a park or pleasure-ground of moderate size, or placed too near, or 



