October 13, 1900. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
101 
BARR S TULIPS. 
Awarded FOUR GOLD MEDALS by the Royal National Tulip 
Society, 1896, 1897, 1898, and 1899, and a SILVER CUP at 
the Temple Gardens Great Flower Show, London, 1900, 
Early Single and Double Tulips of 
finest quality, for early forcing or spring bedding out¬ 
doors. See full Descriptive List in Barr's Bulb Cata¬ 
logue (free). 
MAY-FLOWERING “COTTAGE” TULIPS. 
MAY-FLOWERING DARWIN TULIPS. 
MAY-FLOWERING ENGLISH “FLORIST” 
TULIPS. 
MAY-FLOWERING PARROT or DRAGON TULIPS. 
For the finest collections In the world of tbe above 
beautiful decorative Tulips, see Barr's Bulb Catalogue 
(free). 
BARR’S HYACINTHS. 
THE FINEST OF THE SEASON S CROP. 
Choicest named varieties for pots or 
glasses. 
12 in 12 Exhibition varieties, 5/6, 7/6, and 10/6. 
25 in 25 Exhibition varieties, 18/6. 
Barr’s “ Rainbow Mixture”of Bedding 
Hyacinths, a special mixture of great variety of 
colours. Per 100, 16/6 ; per doz., 2/6. 
Ditto, extra large Bulbs, per too, 22/6; 
per doz , 3/-. 
Barr’s Bulb Catalogue, containing a de¬ 
scriptive List of the finest Hyacinths, Tjlips, Cro¬ 
cuses, Gladioli, Lilies, and all the best Bulbs and 
Tubers for In or outdoor planting, sent free on applica- 
tion. 
BARR & SOWS, 
11,12, <& 13, King St., Covent Garden, LONDON. 
Nurseries : 
LONG DITTON, nr. Surbiton, SURREY. 
“ Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man "—Bacon. 
flU VDothl 
Edited by J. FRASER, F.L.S. 
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1 3 th, 1900. 
“ JTIhe English Flower Garden and 
A Home Grounds.”* —The eighth edi¬ 
tion of this book is a handsome volume 
that runs to 892 pages, inclusive of a good 
index. The printing is clear and the 
smooth paper lacks that glossiness which 
we occasionally see, but dislike on account 
of the flickering play of light that is offen¬ 
sive to the eye every time a leaf is turned, 
or even when lying unevenly so that light 
and shadow are thrown in different 
directions. The title of “ English Flower 
Garden ” is somewhat misleading, although 
any erroneous impression that may arise on 
this score is corrected in the subtitle. Most 
of the examples of flower gardens given are 
English, but Welsh, Scotch, and Irish 
*The English Flower Garden and Home 
Grounds. —Design and Arrangement shown by 
existing examples of Gardens in Great Britain and 
Ireland, followed by a description of tbe Plants, 
Shrubs and Trees for the Open-air Garden and 
their Culture, by W. Robinson, Author of "The 
Wild Garden,” Illustrated with many Engravings 
on Wood. Eighth Edition. Price 15s. London, 
John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1900. 
YEITCH’S BULBS 
COLLECTIONS TO SUIT ALL 
REQUIREMENTS. 
These Collections are arranged on a most liberal 
scale, and contain only the most easily cultivated 
and attractive sorts of Winter and Spring Flowers. 
VEITGH’S “CHELSEA” 
COLLECTIONS 
FOR GREENHOUSE OR CONSER¬ 
VATORY. 
At 21/-, 42/-, 63/-, and 105/-. 
For particulars see Catalogue, gratis and post free 
on application. 
VEITCHS COLLECTIONS 
OF BULBS 
FOR GROWING IN THE OPEN 
GROUND. 
At 10/6, 21/-, 42/-, 63/-, and 105/-. 
For Particulars see Catalogue, post free on 
application. 
gardens are represented. The author, as 
usual, is very severe on the “stony 
grandeur ” of certain gardens, and comes 
down very heavily upon the Crystal Palace, 
which he describes as a “ poor ambition to 
outdo another ugly extravagance.” Happily 
that kind of gardening, or of laying out 
gardens, receives but scant attention at the 
hands of modern landscape gardeners, and 
walls are only built where they become a 
necessity. The idea of many styles of 
gardening is scouted as a delusion, as well 
as the makers of them, who may go to 
Mexico or China for their patterns. One 
style is the “ strait-laced, mechanical, 
with much wall and stone, with water- 
squirts, plaster-work, and absurd sculpture ; 
the other natural.” Tersely, the two are 
the geometrical and the natural styles of 
gardening. The latter is peculiarly 
British, that is, finds its best expression in 
this country, though there are several very 
elaborate and well known gardens that 
follow more or less faithfully some exotic 
copy. To the introduction of some of our 
foreign kings we, no doubt, owe the greater 
portion of the formal gardens amongst us. 
We like to see variety in any one garden, 
as well as differently formed gardens at 
different places, so as to conform to the 
natural formation of the ground and its 
environments. The natural style of 
gardening gives full play to the cultured 
judgment of observant landscape gardeners ; 
and all they have to do is to visit and 
critically examine the proposed site for a 
new garden, and merely adorn Nature on 
her own lines of formation. This cannot 
be done if the operator arrives upon the 
ground with a pre-arranged plan. 
In the second chapter of the book the 
author says that the one aim of his book is 
to uproot the idea that “ a flower garden 
must always be of set pattern placed on 
one side of the house.” While speaking of 
formal gardens and elaborate stonework, 
the lines of Bacon inevitably come to mind, 
“ that when Ages grow to Civility and 
Elegancie, Men come to Build Stately 
sooner than to Garden Finely ; As if 
Gardening were the Greater Perfection.” 
The pictures of ancient Egypt now appear 
to us as highly conventional compared with 
the pictures of the modern artist ; and in 
like manner the stone encumbered and 
stone built gardens appear out of place and 
keeping with modern taste and education ; 
but in either case we think of them as a 
case of evolution of the human mind. Men 
of culture now learn to copy Nature, and to 
follow out the completion of pictures 
already in the rough outline. Only by so 
doing can we have natural gardens of 
native birth, and in keeping with their 
surroundings. The author describes the 
lawn as “ the heart of the true English 
garden,” and no doubt that is true where 
the country is flat, and a truely perennial 
carpet of verdure is natural to it, as may be 
said of almost any part of the British Isles, 
as compared with South European 
gardens where the verdure dies and has to 
be renewed annually from seed. There are 
parts of this country, however, and home¬ 
steads where a stretch of lawn in the 
vicinity of the house would be impossible. 
Then we have to fall back upon sloped or 
terraced gardens, in accordance with the 
steepness of the declivity ; but such 
gardens are perfectly in keeping with the 
natural order of things, and may be 
clothed with appropriate vegetation that 
need not offend either the eye or the taste. 
An example of this is quoted in the case of 
Drummond Castle, Perthshire, where the 
house, which stands on a rock, is sur¬ 
rounded on one side by Ferns, Ivy and wild 
flowers ; while the ground on the south 
side of the house drops down steeply, and 
the terraces have to be supported by retain¬ 
ing walls in order to make gardening 
possible. A splendid opportunity is here 
embraced of utilising climbers in consider¬ 
able variety ; and the author who compares 
the terraces with those of Italian gardens, 
acknowledges their superiority in the 
splendid growth of vegetation, and the 
beauty and brightness of the flowers, even 
at the end of summer. The shelter of the 
terrace walls, the mansion behind, the 
southern slope, the moisture and the cool¬ 
ness of this part of the island all conduce 
to the floriferousness of the plants and the 
longevity of the blossoms, in a manner that 
is totally foreign to gardens on the shores 
of the Mediterranean, except in the spring 
time, before the moisture has had time to 
dry up and the power of the sun become 
strong enough to hasten the maturity and 
decay of the flowers. Tropaeolum 
speciosum has come to be looked upon as 
essentially a Scotch flower, and here it 
thrives to perfection, as it does, perhaps, in 
hundreds of gardens in the same and other 
counties, from the palace of the peer to the 
hut of the shepherd far up the lonely 
valleys, lone and sequestred. Purple 
Clematis, scented-leaved Pelargoniums, 
Tropaeolum majus, and broad borders of 
Myosotis palustris are other plants 
thoroughly at home on these terraces. In 
a description of Penshurst Place, Kent, 
occurs a rather fanciful and poetical 
expression of a common occurrence that 
might be quoted here, namely, “ the way 
too often now is to let the turf run hard 
and straight into the walls, and the winds 
of heaven strike the house untempered by 
the breath of a violet.” Needless to say, 
however, the massing system of summer 
bedding, carpet bedding, designs that 
repeat others, and beds that ape one 
