Preface. 



SOFIERO — which means "Sophie's Rest" — is a Royal 

 residence crowning a hill on the south coast of 

 Sweden. Formerly it was the favourite home of 

 the late King Oscar and Queen Sophie, who built the 

 house sixty years ago and gave it its name. When their 

 grandson, the present Crown Prince of Sweden, married 

 the British Princess Margaret, elder daughter of the 

 Duke of Connaught and only sister of the Princess 

 Patricia, Sofiero was among their wedding gifts ; and 

 ever since it has been the home most beloved of the 

 Crown Prince and Crown Princess and their children. 



Here at Sofiero, when released for a short time from 

 the exacting duties of her position, the Crown Princess 

 spends a large portion of her days out-of-doors, working 

 with her own hands till she has made the grounds blossom 

 in all directions, even to the remotest nooks and crannies. 



And the following pages describe her initial efforts and 

 experiments in transforming a neglected orchard, and an 

 overgrown, tangled hillside, into a veritable paradise of 

 flowers. 



The Crown Princess desires me to emphasise the fact, 

 however, that this book was written in the first instance 

 solely with a view to interesting the Swedish nation in 

 gardening, since in Sweden garden-making is not the uni- 

 versal and popular hobby that it is in England. Her 

 Royal Highness is concerned, therefore, lest these chapters 

 should be too elementary for British readers, more 

 especially the one about rockeries, a form of gardening 

 particularly suited to (and at the same time somewhat 

 misunderstood in) Sweden. 



But there is a freemasonry among flower-lovers that 

 takes little count of the word " elementary.'' Those of us 



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