The Garden 
that We Made 
Beside the 
Pond. 
Where the valley 
ends is what we call our 
“tea terrace”; it is by 
the side of a lame 
o 
that we had made some 
years ago ; and there are 
now both gold fish and 
trout in that pond. 
Amongst the flowers 
by the pond there are notably : iris kcempferi , the Japanese 
iris, which is the iris par preference , but which requires 
some amount of patience, for it seldom blooms until its 
second year ; but one is so much the happier when its 
flowers at length appear. In addition, there are bright 
rose-coloured spiraea, bamboo, day lilies, Solomon’s seal, 
giant seakale with tall stems bearing hundreds of little 
white blossoms, and foxgloves with yellow flowers, a 
perennial variety of this well-known plant which otherwise 
is usually bi-annual. In addition to these we hunted up 
some wild plants, such as the cuckoo pint, heather, the 
wild foxglove, willow herb, and so on, and put them 
amongst the garden flowers. 
This “tea terrace” down in the valley is so very 
sheltered that the bamboo plants and the pampas grass 
have suffered neither from gales nor frosts, but have stood 
here for years without losing any of their glory. 
The lawn is studied with magnolia trees in pure snowy 
glory, and very sweet, though somewhat capricious blossoms. 
The flame flower ( Tropceolum speciosum) climbs gaily over 
the boulders, and gladdens us with its fiery show of 
blossoms. Its roots resemble those of the sugar plant, and 
should preferably be planted fairly deep down between two 
large stones, so that the roots are kept cool while the 
flowers are permitted to bask in the sunlight. It is a 
perennial, but it very often makes a scanty appearance the 
first year, in order to shine so much the more the next. 
