PRIVATE GARDENS 
347 
met with. Within Regent’s Park there are several 
charming gardens round the detached villas, which have 
been already noticed in the chapter on that Park. The 
two most interesting from a horticultural point of view 
are St. Katharine’s and St. John’s Lodges. The fountain 
in the former is the frontispiece to this volume, and 
that view says more than any elaborate description. It 
might be in some far-away Italian garden, so perfectly 
are the sights and sounds of London obliterated. On 
a still, hot day, when the fountain drips with a cool 
sound and there is a shimmering light of summer over 
the distant trees beyond the terrace, the delusion is per¬ 
fect. Most of the herbaceous plants which take kindly 
to London grow in the border—hollyhocks, day lilies, 
poppies, peonies, pulmoneria and lilies, while there is a 
large variety of flowering shrubs—ribes, lilacs, buddleias, 
shumachs and Aralia spinosa. The kitchen-garden pro¬ 
duces good crops of most of the ordinary vegetables. 
The garden is arranged with a definite design ; there is 
nothing specially formal, no cut trees or anything asso¬ 
ciated with some of the formal ideas in England, but there 
is method in the design ; the trees and plants grow as 
Nature intended them, but they are not stuck about in 
incongruous disorder and meaningless, distorted lines, 
as is so often thought necessary, in designing a garden or 
44 improving ” a park. 
St. Johns Lodge has also a well-thought-out garden, 
some of it of a distinctly formal type. The coloured 
illustration of it is taken from a part of the garden 
enclosed with cut privet hedges, with a fountain in the 
centre, on which stands a statue of St. John the Baptist, 
by Mr. Johnes. Between the four wide grass walks 
there are masses of herbaceous plants, backed by rhodo- 
