and Suburban Gardens. 283 



this nursery, are more vigorous and beautiful than persons accustomed to see 

 them just living and flowering in dry sunny borders can well conceive. — J.D. 



Drayton Green. — May 4. Since our last visit (IX. 517.), Mrs. Lawrence 

 has considerably extended her flower-garden, erected a very handsome green- 

 house, a house for forcing plants, a large mass of rockwork, with rustic arches, 

 a basin and fountain, and introduced a number of statues and other sculp- 

 tural or architectural objects. The place is now such a gem of picturesque 

 beauty and botanical riches as is not elsewhere to be found in the neighbour- 

 hood of London. The plants are most admirably grown, and it is only doing 

 justice to Mrs. Lawrence and her gardener, Mr. Cornelius, to state that the 

 order and keeping of the whole are such as to put it entirely out of our power 

 to find fault. 



Among the plants in flower, in the open garden, were some of the most 

 splendid bushes of double-blossomed furze we have ever seen, a large tree 

 paeony covered with bloom, and a splendid hybrid rhododendron, which was 

 afterwards exhibited at the Horticultural Exhibition, May 10. Among the 

 herbaceous plants was a fine collection of heartseases. In the green-house 

 there were, a select collection of beautiful heaths finely in bloom, all the newest 

 and most rare New Holland shrubs, and all the finest pelargoniums. 



Greenhithe. — May 5. The villa of Mr. Foster is formed on a surface com- 

 posed of old chalk-pits, heaps of chalk rubbish that have been accumulating 

 for centuries, and chalk cliffs ; and it is remarkable for the great variety and 

 romantic character of the scenery which it contains in so small a space. The 

 walks display a perpetual change of scene ; they are chiefly of turf, but some 

 of them near the house are gravelled. One walk, along a ridge, affords a 

 remarkably fine specimen of what may be called the elegant picturesque. It 

 is an irregular continuous glade of the smoothest turf, losing itself, on each 

 side, under the branches of the beautiful trees and shrubs. The outline, thus 

 formed, is as full of variety and beauty as can well be imagined. The breadth 

 of this glade or walk is sometimes only 10 ft. or 12 ft., and sometimes 50 ft. or 

 100 ft. There are two retired glens of smooth turf, completely shut out from 

 the world by high banks, covered with trees and shrubs ; not in dense mono- 

 tonous masses, but sufficiently thin and scattered to allow the plants to display 

 something of feature and character. On these banks there are some fine old 

 thorns, profusely covered with bloom. In short, there is an appearance of 

 nature, and, at the same time, of elegance, pervading all the plantations here, 

 from their thinness, irregularity, and the uneven surface on which they are 

 placed, which never can be produced by thick equidistant plantations on level 

 ground, and neglect of thinning out the trees. Near the house there is a steep 

 bank cut into grassy terraces, which have a fine effect j and, on the side of 

 another very steep hill there are scattered groups of pines and spruce firs, which 

 reminded us of scenery which we have seen in Sweden. The whole of this 

 place was in perfect order and keeping ; and it gave us no small pleasure to 

 find that Mr. Foster agreed with us in preferring a garden often yards square, 

 kept in the most perfect order and richness that a garden is susceptible of, to 

 one of a hundred acres, kept as gentlemen's grounds commonly are kept. We 

 saw here a purple Brompton stock, between three and four years old, and 

 several feet high. It was magnificently covered with bloom ; and had been in 

 much the same state, Mr. Foster informed us, for the last two years. 



The Cottage Villa of Mr. Wilson, Surgeon, though not nearly so extensive as 

 that of Mr. Foster, is yet formed on the same description of surface, full of 

 variety, and kept in the highest order and neatness. It also contains some 

 good plants, especially natives, Miss Wilson being a good practical botanist. 

 We saw a remarkably fine plant of .Lithospermum purpiireo-caeriileum, of 

 which rare species there is a habitat in this neighbourhood. A summer-house 

 on the summit of a hill in this garden is embosomed in fruit trees, so as to 

 exclude all the scenery immediately around it ; and to direct the eye far into 

 the county of Essex, several miles up the Thames, and down that river nearly 

 to the Nore; — Cond. 



u 4 



