470 THE COTTAGE GARDENEE AND COUNTEY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION.— Sei'tejibekSO, 1856 
make a railway-like embankment across the dip in the 
park to the foot of the hill to carry the terrace, which 
made my hail* stand on end ; but, ns not a foot of ground, 
or leaf, or twig, must be touched there by any one till the 
Lady and Baronet “ take the whole into consideration,” 
there is no fear of finding fault with principles at Shrub- 
land Park. So jealous are they of the beauties and 
| Italian character of the place, that her Ladyship, somo 
! years since, made herself proficient in the art of dnguerreo- 
typiug landscape viows, and so to test difficult problems. 
The “after-claps” of this art is very dirty work for 
fine ladies ; but Lady Middleton got a strong, “ service¬ 
able ” cotton dross, which fastened in front, aud went 
“ over all,” and she went to work as resolutely as would 
a housemaid to polish a grate. As long us we have 
such blood and spirit in high life there is no fear of 
our degenerating, as a nation, into the common-place 
views of nine-tenths of the landscape gardeners, who 
dabble in flower-gardening as well. 
It is now over twenty years since ribbon planting was 
originated by Lady Middleton on a twelve-feet-wide 
border, which is almost seventy yards long. This style, 
unless it is rigidly carried out on the system of contrasts, 
as the scarlet and yellow is at the Crystal Palace, cannot 
fail, sooner or later, to suggest that other system called 
shading as with Berlin wool. The first attempts at 
proper shading were begun here in 1840 in the Fountain 
Garden, and in a year or two after that three tolerable 
shades of pink, purple, blue, and yellow were obtained, 
and are kept up to the present day. Each shade is of 
different height from the next, which makes the plant¬ 
ing more difficult. About that time a thousand seedlings 
from crossed flowers began to bloom yearly, and it was 
from so many tints that the first ideas of shading proper, 
or after the manner of the rainbow, first originated hero, 
aud at first we were all daft about it; but we soon dis¬ 
covered the almost insuperable difficulties which must 
be encountered at every succeeding step. For want of 
proper subjects to carry out this, the highest style in the 
art of flower-gardening, and to show you that the idea 
is founded on natural laws, which force themselves on 
the minds of great artists involuntarily as it were, I may 
just state, that about this stage of our proceedings Mr. 
Fleming, from Trentham, came to see the gardens, and 
stopped a day or two, and I learned from him that the 
Duchess of Sutherland was urging on him the very same 
reasons which Lady Middleton was ringing in my ears 
for effecting a system of shading flower-beds. From 
1840 till last year the great works in hand prevented 
anything very particular being done here to the shading 
system; but this season they have beautifully shaded 
the first two beds you meet on the lower ground. They 
are flank-beds to the great staircase; one on the right, 
and the other on the left, a little in advance from where 
you land from, the stairs. The outline of the parts 
shaded is before you from memory ; but it does not give 
any idea of the whole design, which is in scroll-work all 
round this centre. The outline is accounted for to 
correspond with tiro parts of the scroll next to it. The 
scroll is planted with bands aud lines of Yew and 
Variegated Box, about ten inches or a foot high. The 
two are so justly balanced as you come down the steps 
as to have a grand effect. This is the plan. The White 
Ivy-leaf Geranium is backed slightly with young plants of 
Hendersoni aud Boule de Neige, to raise it so as to meet 
the next, which is a peculiar kind of Lucia rosea, but 
lighter than Rosea compacta. This joins to Cherry 
Cheek, an orange pink, which is backed with Le Titian, 
a rosy pink. The two shades here blend so perfectly 
that you cannot tell where the one ends or the other 
begins, aud the centres are planted with the Shrubland 
Queen Gerauium, a dark red or scarlet. Each kind is 
so planted as to follow the outline of the mass, as a 
matter of course, and the telling beauty is owing just as 
much to this “ in-and-out ” style of planting as to the 
colours. The same plants would not tell one quarter so 
1. White Ivy-leaf Geranium, 30 inches wide. 
2. Lucia rosea Geranium, 2 feet wide. 
3. Cherry Cheek and Le Titian, 2£ feet. 
4. Shrubland Queen in centre. 
well in a plain circle. So, you see, great artists fix on a 
given style of planting first of all, and then make the 
best plans of beds to suit that particular style. No ono 
has ever shown the true artist in this department in such 
plain-spoken terms as our correspondent “ H. C. K.,- 
Rectory,” page 896, who is evidently a natural-born 
artist himself. The only alteration they would make in 
Iris plan at Shrubland Bark would be to change 17 
for 19, or else 4 for 2 ; and the .reason they would 
give for doing so would be, that the central group 
is complete in itself, therefore “cross-corner” plant¬ 
ing the two end groups is superfluous; but if the 
centre relied on the strength of the two ends, the cross 
planting would tell that each group depended partly on 
that next to it. There is not a better lesson to study 
from in The Cottage Gardener than that article. 
In advance of the shaded flank-beds towards the 
loggia, and in sunk panels on either side of a broad 
green terrace, is the latest plan for a high style of 
planting beds by Lady Middleton. The depth of the 
panels is the best in proportion to the size 1 have yet 
seen. The two sunk panels at the Crystal Palace, where 
the chain pattern of scarlet and yellow runs only all 
round, cannot be compared. Here, as the whole of the 
bottom of each panel under review is occupied with the 
pattern, and the outline is intricate, a description of 
this arrangement of beds would teach nothing without 
drawings. Suffice it to say, that the key-bed is near 
one side; that it is half of pure yellow, and half of 
bronzy-yellow Calceolarias. A glaring yellow or a rich 
brown would not suit the rest of the planting. Five 
largo beds, having between them somewhat of a fan shape, 
point their narrowest ends towards the key-bed, aud i 
outside them, and all round, an intricate system of scroll- 
beds reach to the bottom of the slopes of the panels, where 
the grass ends, the pattern being on gravel. Standing 
opposite the key-bed, there is a system of long, narrow 
beds on the top of the slope opposite you, and the plant¬ 
ing of these has reference to that below. The colours 
are also to be seen from the upper terraces and from the 
living rooms, which are from seventy to a hundred feet 
higher, besides the distance in a straight line. Those 
who understand the force and value of colour from such 
heights and distances would say the planting would 
need to be as at the Crystal Palace to give any effect; 
but such is not the case. The centre group pointing 
to the key-bed is made with one large bed of Punch in 
the centre, and a large bed of the Flower of the Day on 
each side of it; and these, again, are flanked with beds of 
Lady Middleton Geraniums, the most gorgeous colours 
