49ft 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
September 20. 
square, dark-green boxes of scarlet Geraniums, managed 
on his own original plan, look as rich and daazling as 
when the world first heard of his plans. Half-a-mile of 
a gradual ascent from this lodge, through the park, 
leads up to the front door on the south-east of the 
“ Hall,” which is placed on the brow of a hill, at one 
end of a very large space of table land. In my busy 
days, the west front opened on two terraces, one above 
the other, with flights of steps at either end, and a 
middle flight on the second terrace. From the bottom 
of the second terrace to the brow of the hill the ground 
sloped considerably, and on this slope the Italian garden 
stood where Punch first made his appearance among a 
row of seedlings— Judy coming up to the mark the same 
season, and in the same row. Mr. Fleming, from Tren- 
tham, was the first stranger who took note of the two 
promising seedlings, while on a visit here ; and Mr. 
Cole, the celebrated florist, named them two years 
after that. 
I said, long ago, that two large boxes full of Judy, 
standing on the conservatory, or south terrace, and 
managed on Harry Moore’s plan, were the most perfect 
things of the kind I had ever seen; without a single 
variation on the old mode of treating them, these two 
boxes are now as perfect in growth and in bloom as 
anything of the kind that ever was attempted. The 
next nearest to them in perfection, that 1 know of, are 
the two immense Tom Thumbs at Bank Grove, near ! 
Kingston, which I lately described, and eight vase Tom i 
Thumbs, which I saw last autumn at Newnham-Court- j 
ney, near Oxford; but Judy here is far before them ' 
all—so that wo have now a full proof that some kinds 
of scarlet Geraniums may be kept at least ten years in 
the same soil and boxes, not only without any falling j 
back, but rather improving all the time ; aud for this 
move we have to thank Harry and the London Lodge 
at Shrubland Park. 
The said Italian garden, on the hanging slope, is now 
on a dead level; and such another garden, I am quite 
sure, is not to be seen in this or in any other country. 
The ground had been cut down nearly ten feet deep on 
the highest side, and wheeled with barrows over the 
steep side of the hill beyond, into a yawning gulf, 
smoothed on the surface by a six-and-thirty year’s 
growth of tree box, from seeds gathered on Box Hill, in 
Surrey. Before the soil was thrown out, a wide space 
in the centre of the hill, and in a direct line from the 
centre of the house and terraces, was cleared out, and 
down to a solid “footing,” for laying in a foundation on 
which to run down a magnificent flight of stone steps, 
the finest in Europe, and in Sir Charles Barry’s best 
style, assisted by the classical taste of Sir William and 
Lady Middleton, who have long contemplated and dis¬ 
cussed the possibility of this grand undertaking. From 
the bottom of this hill, the ground formerly sloped away 
into the park rapidly, and on these slopes parts of the 
“ lower garden ” were laid out in various ways—the 
Rosary among the rest. All this is now buried, no one 
knows where, or how deep, and the whole space, to a 
great extent, right and left, from the line of the steps, is 
now as level as a die, and advanced far into the park ; j 
at the extremity of this level plateau, and in a direct 1 
line from the centre of the house, a chaste Italian colo- i 
naded loggia is erected of the purest Caen stone. It is ! 
open on the garden front, and more than half open on 
the park front, and at both ends, and is the very finest 
garden ornament I ever saw or heard of. Between this 
loggia and the bottom of the grand staircase, as I shall 
call it, the ground is laid out in the geometric style, with 
broad green avenues intersecting each other, and ex¬ 
tending to diilerent lengths, but all ending with some 
specific object of nature or art. At the bottom of the 
grand staircase, which divides right and left from the 
centre line into a crescent or half-moon, a splendid 
fountain plays in a basin forty feet in diameter, with a 
raised massive curb of beautiful stonework, in the 
centre of a circle of grass 100 feet in diameter, and out¬ 
side that a broad gravel-walk. The ground, in some 
parts of this level plateau, had to be raised fifteen feet, 
to get it to a uniform level, and the earth for this filling- 
up was dug out just on the outside of the plateau itself, 
and the excavated parts are now formed into dells, 
glens, and valleys, of all forms of outline, altogether 
making a most picturesque and unique garden, for all 
sorts of wild, rock, and wilderness plants, shrubs, trees, 
and all manner of things. 
From the bottom of these dells, up to the drawing¬ 
room level on the first terrace, there are just one hun¬ 
dred and seventy steps, in different flights and flats, or 
rests, and every flight ending in an odd number of steps, 
according to the prevailing fashion amongst first-rate 
architects and landscape gardeners. 
Among other incidents of travel, I had the good 
fortune to meet Sir Charles Barry here, and to hear the 
discussions between him, the worthy Baronet, the 
honourable Lady, and their new gardener, my successor, 
Mr. Davidson, about what was, what is now, and what 
is yet to come, before these great improvements are 
finished ; and if it were allowed for an old man to wish 
himself young again, I then thought I could wish to 
turn back the screw to live-and-twenty, and begin afresh. 
But rather let us hear about the flowers. 
Mr. Davidson told me that he planted out two thou¬ 
sand Golden-chain Geraniums this season—six hundred 
more than ever I did. They are as borders to large 
beds, in double rows, and in other ways as well. 1 
think, at a guess, he must have planted out three thou¬ 
sand of the prettily-marked horse-shoe-leaved Baron 
Huyel Geranium. This is one of the dwarfest of all that 
breed, and the darkest marked leaf of the whole tribe, 
except the seedling raised at Cosey Hall, in the county 
of Norfolk, by Mr. Wight, after whom it is called here, 
but I am not sure that is the right name of it. I had 
some cuttings of it, and named it Wight's Seedling pro¬ 
visionally. Next the outside of some large beds they 
place a band of silver sand, about five or six inches 
wide, between the plants and the grass, and as this 
glare would subdue the effect of the Golden-chain, they 
plant a band, a foot wide, of Baron Hugel, between the 
on 
sand and the Golden-chain, and on looking down 
this arrangement from the drawing-room windows, the 
effect is exceedingly good. This is quite new to me as 
an edging-, the silvery white of the sand, the dark and 
green leaf of the Baron, and the golden variegated leaf, 
with the scarlet flowers of both, kept in subjection by 
thinning, and any of the usual plants and tints behind 
that, towards the centre of the bed, are, indeed, most 
excellent. In another bed—a large oblong—the centre 
was of the Flower of the Day, about four or five feet 
wide, the flowers much thinned; next to that, a band 
of Punch, or some one like it, two feet wide, and in 
full bloom; next to that, another band of the frosted 
silver plant, Cineraria maritima; and next, the stone 
curb or border to the bed, which is on gravel; a narrow 
band of Silene Schaftce, or a good variety of Phlox Drum- 
mondi trained down, was a mixture that made a good 
impression. 
A new mixture, which is exceedingly good and telling, 
is made with equal quantities of the Emma Verbena, a 
very dark purple; and Iphigene, a light grey one. But 
why tell of regular mixtures, when no one succeeds with 
them, except at Shrubland Park. I should think, if a good 
gardener were to see the four beds of this mixture here, 
the sixteen beds of Heliotrope, and Verbenas Duchess de 
Eemours, Hamlet, or Haidee, in the “Fountain garden,” 
and the shot-silk bed in the “ French garden,” he would 
be ready to cut oft’ his own ears if he could not do the 
like. It is worse than useless to pretend to say, that on 
