ALPINE GARDENS. 



81 



setting which surrounds them, and by the fact that under the con- 

 ditions in which tiiey are placed the plants prosper m a special manner. 



And outside these great collections and the well-known beautiful 

 classic gardens, there are thousands of growers of mountain plants, 

 whether on rocks on the ground only, or in flower beds, who cultivate 

 them lovingly and often with great success. That is why I consider 

 this country as the most advanced in the cultivation of mountain 

 plants, as it is in almost all branches of horticulture. If we have 

 any superiority in Switzerland it is in mural cultivation and alpine 

 gardening. That is why I thought a rapid sketch of this subject 

 would interest my readers. 



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Let us first take some of the English alpine gardens — those that I 

 have had an opportunity of visiting. Warley is without doubt one of 

 the best known and most admired. Botanists, gardeners, and artists 

 look to this garden as to a place of desirable pilgrimage. It has the 

 advantage of an excellent chmate, and, though only twenty-four miles 

 from London, is completely free from its foul fogs and smoke. Here, 

 sheltered by evergreen oaks and the Spanish chestnuts plants by 

 John Evelyn, are plants from every part of the temperate world. The 

 flowers from the Cape and from New Zealand are side by side with 

 those of the highest Alps and of Arctic and Antarctic regions. Every- 

 thing is well grouped and admirably and artistically combined to form 

 wonderful pictures. 



From earliest spring the wide lawns are carpeted with myriads of 

 flowers and particularly with bulbous plants. 



There is at Warley a water garden, a woodland garden, a fruit 

 garden, a botanic garden, a bulb garden, an herbaceous garden, and 

 even a kitchen garden, every one of which is a picture in itself and 

 has its special value. But the alpine garden in itself and for itself 

 has made the great reputation of Warley Place, and indeed justly. It 

 is a very fine work, bearing on the face of it, even deeper than all the 

 rest, the stamp of the artist who conceived it. It is not in the true 

 sense of the word a garden, but a valley hollowed out in the mountain, 

 and in this valley is shown a synthesis of the whole plan of mountainous 

 regions. At the bottom of the valley runs a little stream ; it murmurs 

 a wild and plaintive song. On finding oneself hidden among the masses 

 of flowers, one feels as if transported into the midst of a great landscape 

 of Scotland or the Alps of Switzerland. The space occupied is over 

 an acre, and the valley runs from north-west to south-east. At the 

 lower end is a miniature lake that receives the stream after it has 

 passed through a series of picturesque gorges. This garden is partly 

 formed of calcareous rock for the benefit of plants requiring lime, and 

 partly of granite for those that dislike it. It was made barely twenty 

 years ago and looks perfectly natural. 



The alpine garden at Friar Park, belonging to Sir Frank Crisp, 

 is one of the greatest things I have ever seen in its way. It lies open 

 to the sun, in the mild and equable climate of Henley, by the cool 

 VOL. XXXVII. a 



