A Garden in Berkshire. 



21 



dead stumps or with only a little life in them, serve as supports for rambling roses, 

 showing one of the several ways in which they grow willingly and display their 

 beauty. 



The locality having no stone suited for dry walling, the retaining walls of the 

 different levels are built in brick with earth- joints for planting. In these, pinks 

 and saxifrages, stonecrops, sandworts, rock-cresses and other small plants of mountain 

 origin luxuriate, and, having been planted by a master hand, fall into groups of 

 pleasant form that give enough at a time of one kind of interest. The old boundary 

 wall, which was found covered with grass and weeds, was cleared of all undesirable 

 growths and planted with wallflowers, Cheddar pinks, stonecrops and a few other 

 such plants. 



From a garden door in the middle of the house front a wide paved walk, joining 

 with and crossing the terrace parallel with the house, leads straight forward to the 



FIG. 24.— WEST END OF FLOWER BORDER. SEE "f" ON PLANTING PLAN (FIG. 23). 



orchard, to which it descends by a bold flight of semi-circular steps on to a grassy 

 platform following the same form. From this, three broad grass paths diverge into 

 the orchard ; the paths proceeding to certain points from which others again radiate. 

 These grass paths, ten feet wide, are kept mown. In the spaces between, where the 

 grass is let grow as it will, hosts of daffodils appear in spring, followed by fritillaries 

 and meadow saffron in their seasons. 



The water garden on the lower level of the house-front, reached by two angular 

 flights of steps, is a long parallelogram. At each end is a circular tank, with a 

 square one in the middle. They are finished with a flat stone kerb and connected in 

 a --straight line by a narrow sill having the same kerbing. It is a happy home for 



