378 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
of this ivied screen there is a seat, and on each side shelves for holding 
potted carnations, pinks, auriculas/’or other fine plants, which only 
require the morning sun when in flower. These shelves, I am told, are 
always, more or less, furnished with flowering plants throughout the 
season; and, except in very severe frosts, is an excellent station for 
auriculas and many other potted plants. 
Leaving the basin, and proceeding onwards, the next object is the 
tulip bed, of similar form and extent, and awninged over like that for 
hyacinths, only it is not raised so high from the ground, because the 
excellence of a tulip can only be seen by looking down into the flower. 
Beyond this bed there is another for anemones, of the same form and 
dimensions as that for ranunculuses, already noticed. All these beds 
are filled with annual flowers raised for the purpose, or with super¬ 
numerary green-house plants, soon as the bulbs and tubers arc taken 
up, and remain till it is time to replant the bulbs, &c. 
That you may have a clear idea of this flower-garden, I shall add a 
few words of general description. I have already stated that it occupies 
an open space, bounded by thick plantations on the kitchen-garden side, 
and by a less dense fringe towards the park. It is of an oval form, the 
greenhouse being, as before observed, central. This is somewhat 
elevated, and the general surface of turf lies in a kind of semicircular 
hollow round the east end of the building, at the distance of about 
fifty yards. The surface is skilfully varied by groups of small trees, 
shrubs, and knots of flowers, the largest and highest of each being most 
distant from the east end of the greenhouse, which may be considered 
the central point of view, and with reference to which the principal 
masses have been disposed ; and sure I am that, from this point (where 
there is a seat, and which is shady in the afternoon,) a view of the 
whole must be a coup d'ceil of the most delightful description. The 
various tints and colours of the flowers and foliage, the different grada¬ 
tions of their respective heights, and the beautiful play of the verdant 
turf winding among and dividing the groups of plants from each other, 
are altogether a most lovely spectacle. The plots of shrubs and flowers 
are of very many forms, but neither exactly regular nor fantastically 
irregular. Narrow, irregular glades are preserved, to give apparent 
scope; but no very formal lines (except those of the beds and build¬ 
ing) obtrude themselves, to give an idea of stiffness or unnatural 
controul. 
The Italian and other ancient modes of laying out and disposing 
flower-gardens, called “ topiary work,” formed of hedges to conceal the 
extent, and devious paths to distract and mislead the visiter—or, if 
without hedges, the surface cut into numberless whimsical geometrical 
