majority of those upon this comparatively sheltered coast, we Rhodo- 
here find conditions more or less resembling what has been dendron 
already described in the west of Ireland, for the flower- Cliffs of 
garden, strictly so called, is a walled one. Only a painfully poywth 
orthodox-minded gardener would, however, insist upon limiting 
that name to it, for the real flower-garden here is on the 
contrary a garden which climbs, races, bounds up or down hill, 
all but entirely at its own good pleasure. It is a garden which 
at the right season offers to the eye cataracts, nothing short of 
cataracts, of gorgeous colour, reds chiefly, but reds of every 
shade, from deepest crimson to blush or pale salmon, a garden 
which it is impossible to visit at its own time of year without 
feeling that for once you realise how lordly this art of ours of 
horticulture might become if only circumstances were often as 
kindly, or if the scene of our operations could be often upon 
such a scale as this! It was the happy thought of the owner of 
Howth a good many years ago to fill the whole of the broken 
cliffy slopes nearest to his house partly with Azaleas, partly 
with the better sorts of Rhododendron. The rocks of which 
these slopes consist being wholly of micaceous granite, untainted 
by any hint of the detested limestone, both plants have grown 
and flourished in this surprising fashion, the grey sobriety of 
the granite itself, unbroken save by a twinkle now and then 
of mica where the sun touches it, bringing out the sumptuous- 
ness of this colour which overlies, and as it were submerges it. 
That an effect so splendid should be shortlived is the only 
reverse of the medal! May past, and June on the wane, our 
gorgeous flood of colour pales to a mere assemblage of 
ordinary-looking evergreens and stretches of unimpressively 
dark-green heather. Later, it is true, the last-named wakens up 
19 
