18 



THE ELOWER GAEDEIS". 



an outer fillet of box, having openings left, like the 

 gates of a Roman camp, for the approach of the work- 

 men and the fruit-gatherers ! "What pleasant strolls 

 may be taken in a wilderness of apple, bullace, cherry, 

 plum, filbert, and medlar trees, with an underwood of 

 periwinkles great and small, honesty, and primroses, 

 and with one path at least skirting the edge of the fish- 

 pond, from which a pike for dinner may always be had ! 

 His visitors enjoy the combination as much as himself. 

 He asks a city friend ivTiich he will have put into his 

 carriage — a basket of flowers, or a hamper of vegeta- 

 bles ; — and the answer is, " Both !" But, after all, this 

 form of gardening is more practicable at the country par- 

 sonage, the wealthy farmhouse, and the mansions of our 

 minor aristocracy, than at the villa proper. Nor can it 

 be called a style devoid of design and principle ; for it is 

 eminently the utilitarian and experimental style of 

 gardening. 



A very eligible garden for English villas is the winter 

 garden, or garden of evergreens, with a large proportion 

 of grassy slopes and lawns. It by no means excludes 

 gay flowers in summer ; but they must be such as either 

 entirely disappear in winter, or mark their positions by 

 tufts of green leaves. Standard and pillar roses can, 

 therefore, be but sparingly admitted ; whilst hollyhocks, 

 paeonies, dahlias, bulbous flowers, and the whole legion 

 of annuals, must be pressed into the service, without the 

 least scruple of overtaxing their powers. Very telling 

 winter clumps may be made of brilliant-berried shrubs^ 

 — pyracanthus, snowberry, the wild Guelder rose, the 

 barberries evergreen and deciduous, the spindle tree, 

 the mountain ash, and the yew. A sufficiency of scar- 

 let or fancy* geraniums and verbenas may often be 

 nursed in the house, on window-sills, to supply a few beds 

 on the lawn, and to take the place of the early spring 

 bulbs. Still, the show from November to March is the 

 main point to be attended to. There maybe chrysanthe- 



* See " Fancy Geraniums ; a Practical Treatise" (3d.), by Thornhill 

 and Dickson, Nurserymen, Bristol. 



