161 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Decembek 13, 1859. 
vest looked somewhat tamo after the eye had been feasted to 
satiety in passing over the oval. I presume the Roses, however 
prized, will be moved to the new rosery; as, however beautiful at 
times, they will have a poor chauce of competing successfully with 
the oval and the ribbon-beds. 
Two objections present themselves to this mode of planting the 
oval. First, supposing it to be planted, how is it possible to 
manage and get among the plants to tie and peg, and pick dead 
bowers olf afterwards ? Mr. Robson says—that choosing proper 
weather, and a careful man who takes a pride in his work and is 
not above resorting to the old fashion of using an apron, he lias 
experienced no difficulty whatever. The second objection is : 
Supposing such a mode of planting to do very well in summer, 
how miserable must such a mass ot dull, bare earth look from 
the principal windows all the winter and spring; or, if planted 
at all, how great the labour of planting and removing, &c. Mr. 
Robson gets rid ol all this difficulty by a mode nearly as pecu- 
liaily his own as that of planting. As soon as the bedding 
plants are removed, the ground is levelled, raked rather smooth, 
and, when the surface is dry, rolled all over. A fresh design or 
pattern is then laid down, small stones of uniform size being 
used to mark out the figures. Peebles would be preferred, but 
are not to be got in the neighbourhood. Fig. 3 is a represen¬ 
tation kindly given me of the appearance of the oval this winter, 
done in colours, —black, white, and red,—sufficiently deep to 
keep the colours all the winter. I understand the ground colour 
is black, and our readers may guess the others. I suspect the 
black will be cinder ashes; the white small shells, spar, or chalk ; 
and the red burnt clay. But I only suspect so. I feel sure such 
a pattern wijl have a nice effect from the terrace and windows all 
the winter and spring. In May, or earlier, the stones will be 
picked up, another pattern adopted, and the ground prepared 
for bedding plants. By such constant change it is hardiy pos¬ 
sible to tire of a design. 
Leaving this novelty in flower gardening, we enter a main walk 
from the end of the terrace extending eastwards some three 
hundred yards or more, terminating in a summer-house ; passing 
first on the north side the stables and part of the kitchen 
riG. 3. 
garden, sufficiently fringed by trees and shrubs; then a conser¬ 
vatory or orangery, with a Dutch flower garden in front, and 
sufficiently elevated to permit several green slopes and landings 
between it and the walk, to which we will revert ere long. Some 
fifty feet farther on we catch a view of the tops of a range of 
new greenhouses against the same wall, and 
then the walk is bounded by a close Laurel- 
hedge trained in the subjoined fashion {fig. 4), 
the slope being next the walk. The south side 
of this walk for as great, or a greater, breadth 
than that shown at the sunk fence in fig. i, is 
<[, chiefly sloping lawn, clothed with shrubs, 
\ groups of flower-beds, and fine, healthy, young 
specimens of the Pine tribe, with, perhaps, 
quite enough walks traversing it to give easy 
! access to the beds, &c. Before entering on 
these walks, however, we were joined by Lady 
Julia and the two Ladies Cornwallis ; and I was honoured 
by being asked my opinion on some matters, although the ladies 
and their manager seemed "to have pretty well already arrived at 
a settled determination. 
The first of thesejiad reference to the result of a mistake often 
made by first-rate planters—namely, the planting small plants of 
fine things too near to permit each developing its form and 
beauty. I 11 one instance, where moving or cutting down will have 
to take place, a fine tree of Finns insignis, forty feet in height, 
is getting so interlaced with a beautiful Deodar Cedar of thirty 
feet in height, and wide in proportion, that it is resolved to cut 
away the latter, as there are more Deodars as fine, but no other 
F. insignises equal to this. 
By the branch walks near the end of the terrace, not only were 
there groups of flower-beds in the open spaces, but it looked a3 
if the whole pinetuin and arboretum had been dotted with 
flower-beds when the trees were small. Many of these, no doubt, 
have been turfed; and if many more were so turfed over, and the 
same thing clone for some of the walks, the trees would look more 
in their element, and breadth of lawn be secured. There is no 
beauty in a walk unless it is associated with necessity and utility. 
In some of these beds were fine masses of spring-flowering plants : 
and for keeping up such supply I noticed great quantities of 
Algssum saxatile, white Arabis, purple Aubretia, evergreen 
Candytuft, &c., in borders in the kitchen garden; but these 
may find a’suitable place, and the thriving specimens on the lawn 
have more grass room around them, and no contrast forced be¬ 
tween them and such flowering plants as Dahlias, &c. 
I did not think to inquire how long the pinetuin had been 
planted, but the trees are thriving vigorously. A small plant of 
Picea nobilis had been injured and lost its leadei’, and had made 
