296 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, August 14, 1860. 
whether he was looking for consolation, or for a farm, 
they did not tell me. I met Sir W. Hooker along the 
arboretum, and judging from his looks all was right 
a-head of me ; but he, too, expressed his belief that they 
were not worse olf than their neighbours. Then, said I 
to myself, we must see them all, and see the difference, if 
there be any, and off I went to Hampton Court to begin 
with. 
It is over two years since I have been to Hampton 
Court, but I can see it every clear day without going 
over the threshold. Since then they have made and 
finished the greatest improvement that was needed there 
when Mr. Donald took to the reins—I mean the mucking 
of Geordie’s byre, in the immediate front of the Palace 
as you first enter the Gardens, which, when I first went 
there, six or seven years back, was one mass of Worm¬ 
wood Scrubs, or scrubby belts of the most hu.ngry-looking, 
and most seedy and weedy in appearance of all the scenes 
I ever saw within a garden fence. As you went to the 
right or left the scene began to improve at every step, 
leaving one to assume the reason for the first unfavour¬ 
able impression to have been left there on purpose to kill 
the lines of Yew trees between the Palace and the lakes 
as soon as possible, and thus to convert the original to 
the standard of the present taste in laying-out gardens. 
Gradually, and with great care and taste, all that has now 
disappeared, the old Yews are recovering the colour and 
vigour of their youth, and this has been a godsend season 
for them. 
But what about the flowers ? Why, they are as well 
off as their neighbours, and you hear no grumbling. 
They, the ruling genii, have made great improvements 
since last I saw them, and such improvements as will 
suit you just as well. One great improvement has been 
forced on the gardeners of Hampton Court, whether they 
desired it or not—namely, the kinds of plants that will 
grow, and bloom well, and look good under the full 
spreading Yew trees, or other trees v r hose roots encumber 
not the surface, but not sub tegmine Fagi this time. The 
good of this improvement is, that one can assist any old 
favourite tree in a garden, by digging down carefully to 
the roots, and by making, as it were, a perpetual mulching 
over the roots, to encourage young roots from them up 
to the surface, and to allow passage for the air to get to 
all the roots ; then, to do away with the idea of mulching 
or disturbance of any kind, just make a flower-bed under 
the tree—and, here are the flowers that do and prosper 
under the shadow of great trees. Or, if that be too much 
of a good thing, have your own way, and plant only such 
plants as never bloom, or need never bloom, to give them 
effect there or anywhere else—and here, also, are the 
plants to choose from. But if you are on this side of the 
water, and could call to see the place, it would tell and 
pay better than what I say ; and for that I shall have to 
pay for my temerity before it all ends. And as I may as 
well pay for a sheep as a lamb, I shall tell the whole 
story, and recommend it with all my might and influence. 
Without going back to the old Dutch style of gardening, 
there are few good gardens or pleasure-grounds in which 
some tree or trees exist under which the ground is never 
seen tidy : if it is grass, it is patchy ; or if it is a pretence 
for shrubs, they, too, look as of the Wormwood Scrub 
family, and as a harbour for anything but that of the 
right sort. But to bring the whole to a regular system, 
some of the most appropriate plants cannot well be used; 
for, whatever the plants, they must bear transplanting 
every year, just like bedding plants, in order to accom¬ 
plish the aim in view—the improvement of the tree by 
the bed of mulch, and the beauty of the scene from an 
appropriate covering to the mulch, so to speak, of a plan 
which is little different from a yeai’ly stirring of surface 
soil over the roots of fruit trees, and keeping it from being 
unsightly. The old Tutsan, or St. John’s Wort, Hyperi¬ 
cum calycinum, is the most permanent plant to use for 
such a purpose; and one whole bed of that plant has 
been made here by Mr. Donald under one of the trees 
which required less help ; so that, if the plants are taken 
up once in three years to get the soil well stirred for the 
use of the tree, it will be sufficient, as that St. John’s 
Wort is not easy to transplant without suffering more or 
less from the transplanting. Under another of the old 
Yew trees is a large square bed (all the beds in this 
style of Dutch gardening are squares) planted with the 
large blue Iris Germanicus, which looks green and healthy 
the year round, and gay enough while in bloom; and the 
plants can be taken up and parted every spring without 
hurt or hindrance. Another similar bed is filled with the 
Ribbon Grass, called also Gardener’s Garters, Painted 
Grass, Indian Grass, and Ladies’ Laces, Arundo versi¬ 
color. This looks better under a tree than not, and is 
renewed every winter or spring. But the best plant of 
all for under trees, and for mixing with equal quantities of 
Floioer of the Fay, or any similar variegated Geranium 
in the open beds is the old Stachys lanata, with its thick, 
soft, fleshy leaves, covered with a white silky down, as 
with lamb’s wool, the stems and the whole plant being so 
clothed. This is by many degrees the best plant that has 
yet been redeemed from the old shrubbery-borders for 
the use of the gayest parts of the flower garden and the 
most telling. There is nothing now in the three king¬ 
doms one-half so telling as several large beds of that 
mixture at Hampton Court, and yet there is hardly a 
bloom on the variegated Geraniums in those beds ; and 
any nurseryman who can muster up 10,000 plants of 
Stachys lanata for bedding out next spring, will receive 
the whole strength of all my resources for putting them 
first foot foremost all over the three kingdoms, also 
across the water to Hew York; for here is a perfect sub¬ 
stitute for our variegated Geraniums, which all the sun 
of all the States will neither flag nor impair, and which 
will do in ribbon-lines there as Ccrastium tomentosum 
does with us. 
Neither here nor at the Crystal Palace have the gar¬ 
deners yet hit on the right management of the Yariegated 
Mint; but at Kew they do it to perfection, as we shall 
see next week, if we live so long. But, again, another 
capital hit here is one more white woolly-leaved plant 
from the old stores, which does the thing in style for 
under the trees, and for open day work, and for working 
in with Flower of the Fay in the same off-hand manner 
as the lamb’s wool Stachys, which,by the way, is a native of 
Siberia, and is hardy enough to stand on the roof of the 
tubular bridge over the St. Lawrence, and so clothed that 
the sun could little effect it even there. This other woolly 
plant is Gnaphalium margaritacea, as it used to be called in 
the shrubbery ; but candidissimum has been applied to it; 
also, Antennaria margaritacea. Mr. Donald has beds of 
it as regular as a bed of well-done Verbenas, all the 
branches being regularly pegged down. It lasts a long 
time in bloom, and is as white all over as the driven 
snow. The frosted silver plant is a fool to it in that 
respect. 
Well, but there is another plant which actually does 
better under one of these trees than you could imagine. 
It was sent to me, or recommended by the gentleman 
who first drew our attention to the Yariegated Mint. It 
is Lamium maculatum, almost a native weed; but see it 
done as it is managed here, and you might take the bed 
as a figure out of Euclid, or just out from a royal toilet; 
but in a hot season it might not require so much from 
the hairdresser, or the lady’s maid either. 
Thy Chrysanthemum regalium pleno has done well 
there this season. It is closely trained like all their 
bedders. The ground being dead level, or looking so, 
though Mr. Donald maintains that all the beds on it 
should look level on the surface—even beds of standard 
Roses to be so matched, that looking across any one of 
them it should give an even surface. 
The Perilla has done better than ever this season. 
The Calceolaria integrifolia, the old species from Peru, 
