ALPINE GARDENS. 



83 



begun scarcely fifteen' years ago, it already has the aspect of a natural 

 landscape. The most varied forms set off one another reciprocally. 

 Here are the gigantic Gunnera scahra alternating with delicate ferns 

 or with shrubs of fine foliage, such as the maples of Japan or the most 

 delicate varieties of conifers; elsewhere there are som.e enormous 

 Saxifraga pellata, Heracleums, and Eheums, which set off the elegant 

 clusters of the Fuchsias, the Heaths, the Monardas, or the Columbines. 

 The glaucous or silver leaves of the Onopordons, of the Artichokes, 

 and the Cardoons {Cynara Cardunculiis), show off the flow^ers of the 

 sea-hollies {Eryngium alpinum, amsthystinum, Bourgati, giganteum, 

 maritimum, planum) brought here from all parts of the ancient world, 

 and place themselves, with a noble pride, beside their American con- 

 geners so poorly endowed with either elegance or colour. Then there 

 is the little alpine flora in the small rockeries bordering the sylvan paths 

 — the Edelweiss, the various Gentians, the Prinn^oses, Ranunculi, 

 Ramondias, Soldanellas, Saxifrages, Myosotis, Cortusas, &c., a bril- 

 liant and sparkling company in this vast Paradise of flowers, and all 

 contributing to it their vivid and pure note. Lord Henry and Lady 

 Bentinck take a personal interest in this garden, which has been created 

 by the artistic help of the head-gardener, who bears the predestinated 

 name of Miller. The garden has this special point, that it is an 

 intermediate form of gardening between the rock- and the wood- 

 garden. 



South Lodge, near Horsham., is one of the best rock-gardens I have 

 ever seen. Surrounded by a large and rich collection of shrubs (I 

 believe that all the shrubs of the world are there) artistically grouped 

 and framed in by dark green trees, the plants are disposed with an 

 exquisite taste, their colours being so combined that one gives value 

 to another. When I saw it the Rhododendrons and Azaleas were 

 beautiful; herbaceous and alpine plants are alternated with the shrubs, 

 so that the whole picture is full of life and colour. 



In the rock-garden at South Lodge everything seems healthy and 

 well grown. I saw there the best of alpine plants growing side by side 

 with the children of the New Zealand or the Chilian Alps, of Japan, 

 the Orient, and the Himalaya. Myosoiidium nohile was splendid, and 

 near it bloomed the deep orange flower of the American Lithospermum 

 canescens. I admired immensely, as I saw it drooping from a higher 

 rock, that ideal and superb flower called Crinodendron Hookeri, which 

 my late friend, the Rev. H. Ewbank, grew so well in his Ryde Para- 

 dise; Linnaea borealis, the different kinds of Ramondias, all the beau- 

 tiful species of Meconopsis, Rhododendron kamtschaticum, everything 

 was gay and bright, and even numbers of terrestrial orchids, generally 

 not of easy cultivation m England. 



Leonardslee, just opposite to South Lodge, is such a big place 

 that I call it rather a country than a garden. The rock-garden itself 

 is only a corner of that immense, incommensurable park, which is 

 quarter a botanic garden, quarter a zoological one, quarter an artistic 

 picture, and quarter a wild wood garden. Solanum- crispum here is 



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