68 THE PARKS AND GARDENS OP PARIS. [Chap. IV 



plants can never Ibe grown thus. With the supply of water that 

 these parks command, nothing could be easier than the creation 

 of healthfully covered rocky mounds with true alpine plants, 

 even if the great rocky cliffs did not invite this type of vege- 

 tation. 



One of the, most beautiful features ever seen in such a place 

 is afforded by enormous curtains of Ivy, which drape the great 

 rock walls with the most refreshing verdure at all seasons. Here 

 and there towards the base of these ivy-clad rocks spring flower- 

 ing shrubs, like the Japan Pear and the Forsythia, sparkling with 

 blossom, in early spring. The effect of these among the Ivy is 

 very suggestive, especially to those weary of the prim bareness 

 which flowering shrubs too often display in dug borders. Along 

 the crest of the cliffs in many places where the turf of the high 

 lawns meets the Ivy, a hardy flower, the common red Valerian, 

 comes in to play a very useful part. This bright old border 

 flower, which like the Wallflower adorns many ruins and bridges, 

 has established itself in groups among the upper part of the 

 Ivy, and its effect in summer growing above sheets of Ivy 

 forty or fifty feet high is very charming. 



Here and there in this garden may be noticed unshorn fringes 

 of shrubs instead of the mutilated objects and frequently dug 

 borders too often seen. In nature, especially on mountains, 

 nothing is more delightful than the way the shrubs and low trees 

 nestle themselves in little colonies and groups on the grass. Our 

 gardens will never be worthy of intelligent beings so long as all 

 the flowering shrubs and like plants are primly placed on bare 

 dug borders, margined by a stiff formal line. The effect is all 

 the worse when a line of some showy flower forms a belt, 

 making the whole thing as glaring and changeless as possible. 

 What calls for this hideous and unnatural nakedness ? It is only 

 the convenience of the mowing-machine that is consulted. It 

 is sad to think of the miles of shrubbery in London parks and 

 in gardens elsewhere so mutilated annually that either indi- 

 vidual beauty or good effect of the whole is impossible. 



Unhappily the great central cliff is so high that it cannot be 

 veiled like the minor ones with Ivy, and it is so formed that it 

 presents only an arid mass, on closely examining which one may 

 see ligly seams of plaster bulging out. There never was in a 



