portunity to visit those secluded gardens which we know must hide 
behind those hedges and high walls, which so completely encircle an 
English park, making a charming privacy for the owners but a 
tantalizing barrier to the outsider who longs to see what lies beyond. 
There are to my mind three kinds of gardens in England : 
One, the great estate with its acres of gardens, a head gardener 
and innumerable staff,. one of whose functions it is to show visitors 
around and who is very glad to do so for his moderate regulation tip. 
In these you will hkely see wonders as the English gardens have been 
carefully and lovingly nurtured for generations, many containing 
special characteristics and perhaps famous features. 
Another type is the garden of the specialist who, Hke Mr. Wilkes 
and Mr. Dykes, must not be interrupted unless the visitor is a special- 
ist in horticulture or at least a very earnest seeker after knowledge; 
for, as Mr. Wilkes said when I suggested that our members wanted 
to visit the English gardens, "You won't send me any dear ladies 
who will take my time which I wish to give to my plants and who 
only want to talk to each other of their bonnets and of the opera and 
to look at 'pretty' flowers." So, dear fellow member, do not go to 
one of this class of gardens in a light or trifling mood. Better still, 
do not go at all unless you are a specialist. 
And then there is the third class of gardens and gardeners, to 
which the majority of us belong, the amateurs who work hard in 
their own gardens and love them as we love ours but probably devote 
much more of their time both to planning and to actual personal 
labor than we do. These gardeners will welcome you and delight to 
show you their gardens. The host you probably will find is quite as 
keen a gardener as the hostess, for unhke most American men, he 
will have the time to give to these delights; probably they will have 
some specialty and should you arrive in the season of its fruiting or 
flowering you will meet many neighbors all of whom each year come 
to see the specialty and each season are quite as keen about it as if 
they had not been doing the same thing for many years. When you 
go into the country to see this type of garden you are meant to really 
see it, not to go hastily up a path or two, but to make a real visit for 
the afternoon, inspect the plants, visit the shrubbery, wall garden, 
rock garden, vegetable garden and join in heated arguments between 
your host and his near neighbor, as to whether King Edward VII is' a 
better potato than another — and even in England do not hesitate 
to insist that the Irish Cobbler does best in this country. 
You will be overcome with delight at certain lovely half vines, 
half bushes, the names of which you will carefully write down with 
very high hopes of soon having them at home, usually to find that 
unless your garden is in California, it is a forlorn hope. You will be 
surprised how little the varieties of reds and other very strong colors 
33 
