4 6 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF GARDENING. 



being reasonable in price at the same time. Old Seakale or Rhubarb pots make good 

 receptacles for terrace wall plants, being good in form and colour. 



Now there is such a desire for bright colour and sweet-scented blossoms near the 

 house, I often wonder our best architects do not give us low, hollow-topped walls of brick 

 or tiles, for Irises, Carnations, Pinks, Stocks, Wallflowers, and even dwarf Scotch and other 

 Roses or other suitable flowers. These walls, beautifully tiled and thick-set with aromatic plants 

 and flowers, are especially admired by most garden-loving visitors in Portugal and Spain, 

 where some of the finest examples date from Moorish times. The pergola in all its forms 

 is now a welcome feature in many of our best gardens, and we hope the old Moorish 

 hollow-topped terrace walls will soon follow. Even the more homely window-box should 

 be given to us in durable and suitable materials by the architect, instead of being left to 

 the carpenter, thus becoming a permanent portion of the house, and not a mere temporary 

 and often ugly makeshift as it is now. 



As to the best use of tender plants in the open-air garden, real object-lessons are 

 better than the best of written or printed advice. Go, if possible, or at least send your 

 gardener to see the actual results obtained by their use in such places as Regent's Park, 

 Hyde Park — notably the little watery dell at the head of the Serpentine. Much good work 



of arrangement. We should not dot our Palms or Musas or Indian Figs at regular intervals 

 all over our shady banks and sunny glades alike. Not only is the dotting and spotting 

 of the entire lawn space with sub-tropical plants inartistic, but it adds materially to the 

 labour and cost of mowing and keeping in every way. One of the true tests of a garden 

 scene is its picturesque character, or, in other words, would a Leader, a Parsons, or a Moon, 

 or any other good landscape artist, care to paint it as it is, leaving nothing out ? 



1 know a garden in Ireland where the smooth green lawn ends at a rocky terrace 

 overlooking the sea and in full sunshine. It is not, at first sight, a likely place for exotic 

 vegetation ; but a few large American Agaves grouped amongst the rocks, the soil amongst 

 which is carpeted with Fig Marigolds (Mesembryanthemums), really make a picture of the 

 scene, and give one a glimpse of the Riviera under our oft murky skies. A sheltered, 

 mossy dell, down which a little trout stream tumbles from one shelving rock to another, 

 is just the place in which to group a few large Dicksonias and ether Tree Ferns, which 

 look quite at home, surrounded as they are by natural conditions of flickering shade, coolness, 

 and ample moisture, the damp rocks and soil at their feet being carpeted with cool, half-hardy 

 Selaginellas, that sometimes even survive an ordinary winter, though the Ferns are removed 



is also done at Battersea Park 

 in the so-called "Sub-tropical 

 Garden," and also at Hampton 

 Court, while something to 

 learn, something worth study 

 for purposes of imitation, or 

 lather improvement, may be 

 seen in all the great public 

 parks and gardens in or 

 around London. But we 

 must remember that even in 

 our best public gardens the 

 arrangement of fine-leaved 



A GARDEN IN SUMMER-TIME. 



plants is not invariably per- 

 fect, and we must all do our 

 best to get clear of too many 

 flower-beds, and of the in- 

 artistic dot and line method 



