22 



ROYAL GARDENS 



The garden must present a very different aspect now, to 

 what it did in the Scotch King's time. It has been made a home 

 for a host of Alpine plants, choice shrubs, roses of all kinds, 

 bog plants, water-lilies, and those beautiful harbingers of spring, 



Daffodils that come before the Swallow dares." 



These all find a congenial home, and form a never-failing 

 source of interest and pleasure in their various seasons. 



Having made this short retrospect, I now turn to the 

 present appearance of the garden, and will briefly describe 

 some of its chief features and occupants. First then, I will 

 take the Rock Gardens, and here let me say, there has been 

 no attempt to form one large rock garden, but rather a series 

 of small ones, here and there, on the surface of the slope, 

 wherever opportunity has suggested itself. This, while lacking 

 the imposing character of some famous rock gardens, forms a 

 not inharmonious whole, the appearance of which, I venture 

 to think, would not have been so good had it been treated in 

 a more pretentious manner. The stone used in the making 

 of these rock gardens is a yellow-brown sandstone, brought 

 from Snettisham in Norfolk, and locally called Car-stone. It 

 is very porous, weathers quickly, and in a damp spot is soon 

 covered with vegetation. The stones have been arranged in 

 imitation of a natural outcrop of rock, except by the sides 

 of the paths. There, they are frankly placed anyhow, as a 

 support to the bank, and to retain the soil, incidentally forming 

 pockets and crevices to hold a great variety of plants, all of 

 which help in their season to give interest to, and beautify 

 the garden. 



Some of the chief occupants of these rock-pockets are 

 Acantholimons, of which acerosum, Fomini, lepturioides, 

 libanoticum, and venustum are all doing well, growing in as 

 hot and dry an exposure as possible, in a deep root run of 

 stony, sandy loam. They are very choice rock plants, and 

 are worth a great amount of trouble to encourage to grow. 

 They form dense spiny tufts, from which issue rose, or pink 

 sprays of bloom. 



