FLORA 
AND SYLVA. 
Vol. III. No. 32.] 
NOVEMBER, 1905 
[Monthly. 
THE NEW GARDEN AT BUCK- 
INGHAM PALACE. 
Those interested in garden design and 
the improvement of London have now 
had an opportunity of judging the effect 
of this new garden during the present 
flower season, and will perhaps have seen 
reason to think that it was a mistake 
to mutilate the park for the sake of ex- 
tending the excessive area devoted to 
the bedding out of tender plants in the 
London parks. We have enough in the 
Regent's and Hyde parks, without an 
even less interesting spread of the same 
thing in front of the palace. It was surely 
an insufficient reason for cutting off a 
piece of the park. It was easy to get the 
space necessary for the road without 
stealing away some of the charms of the 
park. The flower-gardening can be 
mended or changed ; the injury to the 
park cannot. The lake now jams against 
a high terrace wall like a canal to a quay, 
and the way around the water is cut off. 
What is to become of the parks, if in 
the course of ''improvements" design- 
ers are at liberty to take slices from 
their precious areas ? The road is a 
great improvement, but it could have 
been made without spoiling the beauty 
of the park or limiting its area. There 
is a poor little terrace where no terrace 
was needed, which cuts off the view 
eastwards ; but the men who plan such 
things do not consider views. 
A wide walk has been cut across 
the Green Park, which has not been 
done without injuring the park, while 
the road up Constitution Hill hollow, 
dark, and fortified by hideous rails, is 
left in all its ugliness. The trees to form 
a shade avenue are already there. The 
grass slip against the palace garden wall 
is useless and should be thrown into 
the roadway, and the railing on the 
opposite side either pushed back or 
removed. This could have been done 
without limiting the area of the park, 
and a much better effect secured than 
by the bald road which now cuts the 
Green Park in two. 
He is a courageous man who suggests 
the formation of a new society in the 
presence of the many that exist, but 
there might well be an association for 
protecting the parks, as it is clear we 
have not only to guard against railway 
and other projectors but also against 
the acts of those who are commissioned 
to make improvements in them. 
London is a city of wasted oppor- 
tunity for improvements. It would be 
